New research from the University of Utah shows where the balsam wooly adelgid has spread across the Utah. The tiny insect is an invasive species and slowly kills fir trees. The new research shows how climate change could expand the insects' range and impact Wasatch forests.
The balsam wooly adelgid is killing subalpine fir trees in lower elevation forests across the Wasatch Mountains. New research tracks how climate change could expand their habitat.
“Unfortunately,” said Mickey Campbell, a research assistant professor at the University of Utah’s Department of Geography, “the story is not very optimistic when it comes to the potential future effects of balsam wooly adelgid on subalpine fir trees in our region.”It took the balsam wooly adelgids decades to slowly creep, or hitch a ride, across forest floors from Northern Europe to the Mountain West.
“And that combination of draining the tree of resources and adding its toxic saliva into the mix,” Campbell said, “is what ultimately drives a tree’s health decline.” The insects thrive in Utah’s lower elevation forests where temperatures tend to be slightly warmer and solar radiation exposure is higher. Those are the areas, like the Farmington and American Fork canyons, where Campbell said the “damaging effects are being seen most severely.”
That’s why Campbell and other researchers wanted to get a more complete picture of the balsam wooly adelgid’s presence in Utah and create models predicting how much more of the state’s forest could become prime habitat. The insect population isn’t expected to increase much in the higher and cooler Uinta mountain ranges. But that could change if the most severe climate change projections come to fruition.“The Wasatch is certainly the most exposed to a potential future in which BWA causes widespread damage in subalpine fir forests,” Campbell said.
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