Quantifying the responses of forest disturbances to climate warming is critical to our understanding of carbon cycles and energy balances of the Earth system. The impact of warming on bark beetle outbreaks is complex as multiple drivers of these events may respond differently to warming. Using a novel model of bark beetle biology and host tree interactions, we assessed how contemporary warming affected western pine beetle ( De...

Changes in thermal regimes that disparately affect hosts and parasitoids could release hosts from biological control. When multiple natural enemy species share a host, shifts in host–parasitoid dynamics could depend on whether natural enemies interact antagonistically vs. synergistically. We investigated how biotic and abiotic factors influence the population ecology of larch casebearer ( Coleophora laricella ), a nonnative pe...

Aim The European gypsy moth, Lymantria dispar dispar (L.), (Lepidoptera: Erebidae) is an invasive defoliator that has been expanding its range in North America following its introduction in 1869. Here, we investigate recent range expansion into a region previously predicted to be climatically unsuitable. We examine whether winter severity is correlated with summer trap captures of male moths at the landscape scale, and quantif...

Warmer climates are predicted to increase bark beetle outbreak frequency, severity, and range. Even in favorable climates, however, outbreaks can decelerate due to resource limitation, which necessitates the inclusion of competition for limited resources in analyses of climatic effects on populations. We evaluated several hypotheses of how climate impacts mountain pine beetle reproduction using an extensive 9‐year dataset, in...

Aim The rate at which introduced insects disperse into novel habitats is a key determinant of the impacts of biological invasions and the efficacy of importation biological control programs. Understanding which life‐history traits or abiotic factors moderate spread rates is important for designing trapping and eradication programs for invasive insects and for designing release protocols of imported natural enemies. Our aim was...

Aim Our aim is to examine the historical breach of the geoclimatic barrier of the Rocky Mountains by the mountain pine beetle ( Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins). This recent range expansion from west of the North American continental divide into the eastern boreal forest threatens to provide a conduit to naïve pine hosts in eastern North America. We examine the initial expansion events and determine potential mechanism(s) of s...