Bark beetle outbreaks have resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of conifers on approximately 30 million hectares of forested lands in western North America during the last decade. Many forests remain susceptible to bark beetle infestation and will continue to experience high levels of conifer mortality until suitable host trees are depleted, or natural factors cause populations to collapse. Stand conditions and drought, combined with warming temperatures, have contributed to the severity of these outbreaks, particularly in high-elevation forests.

Conventional wisdom suggests that large scale bark beetle outbreaks alter fuel complexes resulting in an increased potential for severe fires. Conversely, fires damage trees that may predispose them to bark beetle attack. In reality there is little specific quantified data supporting these assertions, and until recently, relationships between fire and western bark beetles in forests of North America have not been extensively studied. The magnitude of recent outbreaks and large wildfires has resulted in a flurry of research attempting to quantify bark beetle/fire/fuel interactions.
 
We hope and expect that our freely accessible, online bibliography may be of great benefit to any scholarly research. The bibliography searching can be conducted through titles, by author name, or by descriptive words. Where possible, full text of the documents are provided as PDF documents.

Get the The Bark Beetles, Fuels, and Fire Bibliography RSS feed

Subscribe to our feed

To enable the The Bark Beetles, Fuels, and Fire Bibliography RSS feed, simply drag this link into your RSS reader.

Follow

2023

Link

Tree resistance to drought and bark beetle-associated mortality following thinning and prescribed fire treatments, Alexis A. Bernal, Jeffrey M. Kane, Eric E. Knapp, and Harold S.J. Zald; Forest Ecology and Management

2022

Link

Fire and Insect Interactions in North American Forests, Christopoher J. Fettig, Justin B. Runyon, Crystal S. Homicz, Patrick M. A. James, and Michael D. Ulyshen; Fire Science and Management

Link

The complexity of biological disturbance agents, fuels heterogeneity, and fire in coniferous forests of the western United States, David C. Shaw, Peter A. Beedlow, E. Henry Lee, David R. Woodruff, Garrett W. Meigs, Stephen J. Calkins, Matthew J. Reilly, Andrew G. Merschel, Steven P. Cline, and Randy L. Comeleo; Forest Ecology and Management

Link

Fire severity and the legacy of mountain pine beetle outbreak: high-severity fire peaks with mixed live and dead vegetation, Anna C. Talucci, Garrett W. Meigs, Anders Knudby, and Meg A. Krawchuk; Environmental Research Letters

2021

Link

INFECTIOUS DISEASE, BARK BEETLES, AND WILDLAND FIRE IMPACTS ON SOUTHERN SIERRA WHITE PINES, Joan Dudney; Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America

Link

Time-lapse electrical resistivity tomography observation of subsurface forest ecosystem responses to interacting bark beetle and fire disturbance, A. D. Parkesian, M. Bretfeld, B. E. Ewers, and J. Frank; Symposium on the Application of Geophysics to Engineering and Environmental Problems 2021

Link

Sub-fossil bark beetles as indicators of past disturbance events in temperate Picea abies mountain forests, Nick Schafstall, Niina Kuosmanen, Petr Kuneš, Helena S. Svobodová, Marek Svitok, Richard C. Chiverrell, Karen Halsall, Peter Fleischer, Miloš Knížek, and Jennifer L. Clear; Quaternary Science Reviews

Link

Growth and defense inform large sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana) mortality in a fire‐excluded forest of the central Sierra Nevada, Andrew W. Slack, Jeffrey M. Kane, and Eric E. Knapp; Trees

Link

Resin ducts and bark thickness influence pine resistance to bark beetles after prescribed fire, Teresa Valor, Sharon M. Hood, Míriam Piqué, Asier Larrañaga, and Pere Casals; Forest Ecology and Management

Link

Landscape-Scale Drivers of Resistance and Resilience to Bark Beetles: A Conceptual Susceptibility Model, Marcella A. Windmuller-Campione, Justin DeRose, and James N. Long; Ecology and Management of Forest Pests

2020

Link

Ecological restoration for biodiversity conservation triggers response of bark beetle pests and their natural predators, Anne-Maarit Hekkala, Simon Kärvemo, Martijn Versluijs, Jan Weslien, Christer Björkman, Therese Löfroth, and Joakim Hjältén; Forestry

Link

Chapter 9 - Woodboring beetle colonization of conifers killed by fire and bark beetles: implications for forest restoration and black-backed woodpecker conservation, Chris Ray, Daniel R. Cluck, Robert L. Wilkerson, Rodney B. Siegel, Angela M. White, Gina L. Tarbill, Sarah C. Sawyer, and Christine A. Howell; Forest health monitoring

Link

Characterizing Forest Biomass and the Impacts of Bark Beetles and Forest Management in the Southern Rocky Mountains, USA, Anthony G. Vorster

2019

Link

Corrigendum: Tree mortality from fires, bark beetles, and timber harvest during a hot and dry decade in the western United States, Logan T. Berner, Beverly E. Law, Arjan J H Meddens, and Jeffrey A. Hicke; Environmental Research Letters

Link

Tree mortality from fires, bark beetles, and timber harvest during a hot and dry decade in the western United States, Logan T. Berner, Beverly E. Law, Arjan J H Meddens, and Jeffrey A. Hicke; Environmental Research Letters

Link

Tree Mortality from Fires and Bark Beetles at 1-km Resolution, Western USA, 2003-2012, L. T. Berner, B. E. Law, A. J. Meddens, and J. A. Hicke

Link

Forest ecosystem responses to interacting bark beetle and fire disturbance, M. Bretfeld, A. Parsekian, J. M. Frank, D. Beverly, and B. E. Ewers; American Geophysical Union

Link

Chapter 14: Impact of Bark Beetle Infestation on Fuel Loads and Fire Behavior in “Old-Stage” Southwestern Ponderosa Pine, Matt Hansen, Morris Johnson, Barbara Bentz, Jim Vandygriff, and A. Steven Munson; Forest health monitoring

Link

Patterns of woodboring beetle activity following fires and bark beetle outbreaks in montane forests of California, USA, Chris Ray, Daniel R. Cluck, Robert L. Wilkerson, Rodney B. Siegel, Angela M. White, Gina L. Tarbill, Sarah C. Sawyer, and Christine A. Howell; Fire Ecology

Link

The Effect of Wildfires, Spruce Bark Beetles, and Prescribed Burns on Residential Property Values in Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula, Paul C. Reinker

Link

Are wildfires following bark beetles more severe?, Carolyn Sieg; Research Outreach

Link

Alluring signals: the role of ethanol in attracting bark beetles to heat-stressed trees., L. Thomas; USDA Forest Service

2018

Link

Visitor Preferences for Visual Changes in Bark Beetle-Impacted Forest Recreation Settings in the United States and Germany, Arne Arnberger, Martin Ebenberger, Ingrid E. Schneider, Stuart Cottrell, Alexander A. Snyder, Eick von Ruschkowski, Robert C. Venette, Stephanie A. Snyder, and Paul H. Gobster; Environmental Management

Link

Historical and Event-Based Bioclimatic Suitability Predict Regional Forest Vulnerability to Compound Effects of Severe Drought and Bark Beetle Infestation, Francisco Lloret and Thomas Kitzberger; Global Change Biology

Link

Bark Beetles as Agents of Change in Social–Ecological Systems, Jesse L. Morris, Stuart Cottrell, Christopher J. Fettig, Justin R. DeRose, Katherine M. Mattor, Vachel A. Carter, Jennifer Clear, Jessica Clement, Winslow D. Hansen, Jeffrey A. Hicke, Philip E. Higuera, Alistair WR Seddon, Heikki Seppä, Rosemary L. Sherriff, John D. stednick, and Steven J. Seybold; Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment