Productivity, Population Structure, and Subsistence Use of a White Spruce Forest in the Kennicott Valley, Alaska

Stand and landscape level effects of a major outbreak of spruce beetles on forest vegetation in the Copper River Basin, Alaska

“…The low densities of white spruce seedlings among beetle infested stands that we observed were similar to findings on the Kenai Peninsula (Holsten et al, 1995), Colorado (Veblen et al, 1991), and other locations in the Copper River Basin (Loso, 1998). However, the reasons for low numbers of spruce seedlings may have resulted from somewhat different processes in infested forests of the Copper River Basin and Kenai Peninsula.…”

“…The majority of research on spruce beetles in Alaska has taken place on the Kenai Peninsula (e.g., Hard et al, 1983;Hard, 1985;Werner and Hosten, 1985;Reynolds and Hard, 1991;Holsten et al, 1995;Schulz, 1995), with only a few studies from the Copper River Basin (Loso, 1998;Matsuoka et al, 2001;Doak, 2004). The Kenai Peninsula is coastal, farther south, and has a more temperate climate in comparison to the Copper River Basin, which is interior with a continental climate, lower precipitation, and lower and higher temperatures in the winter and summer, respectively.…”

Spruce beetles and forest ecosystems in south-central Alaska: A review of 30 years of research

“…Local demands for firewood and house logs were adequately supplied by beetlekilled spruce during the 1990s outbreak, but demand for live spruce will likely increase with time as beetle-killed spruce decay, fall, and become unsuitable for subsistence harvest. Based on a demographic model of a white spruce stand with 42% beetle-killed spruce in the Copper River Basin, such use of live spruce will expedite declines of white spruce (Loso, 1998).…”