RT Journal Article
T1 Limited Differences in Insect Herbivory on Young White Spruce Growing in Small Open Plantations and under Natural Canopies in Boreal Mixed Forests
A1 Yataco, Allison Pamela
A1 Noor, Sabina
A1 Montoro Girona, Miguel
A1 Work, Timothy
A1 Despland, Emma
AB In managed boreal forests, both plantations and natural regeneration are used to re-establish a cohort of conifer trees following harvest or disturbance. Young trees in open plantations generally grow more rapidly than under forest canopies, but more rapid growth could be compromised by greater insect damage. We compared insect damage on white spruce (Picea glauca (Moench) Voss, Pinaceae) growing in plantations with naturally regenerated trees under mature forest canopies in boreal forests (Québec, Canada). We selected ten sites in the naturally regenerated forest and in small, multispecies plantations and sampled ten young trees of 2.5–3 m (per site) in late summer 2020 and again in early and late summer 2021. We compared overall rates of herbivory, galls (adelgids), damage by the spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana, Clemens), and defoliation from sawflies. Overall, insect herbivory damage remained at similarly low levels in both habitats; an average of 9.3% of expanding shoots were damaged on forest trees and 7.7% in plantation trees. Spruce budworm damage increased from 2020 to 2021 and remained higher in under-canopy trees, but damage rates were negligible at this early stage of the outbreak (1.5% in forest vs. 0.78% of buds damaged on plantation trees). While damage due to galls was higher in plantations, the overall low level of damage likely does not pose a significant impact on the growth or mortality of young trees.
PB MDPI
SN 2075-4450 (electrónico)
YR 2024
FD 2024-03
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10272/23601
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10272/23601
LA eng
NO Yataco, A. P., Noor, S., Girona, M. M., Work, T., & Despland, E. (2024). Limited Differences in Insect Herbivory on Young White Spruce Growing in Small Open Plantations and under Natural Canopies in Boreal Mixed Forests. In Insects (Vol. 15, Issue 3, p. 196). MDPI AG. https://doi.org/10.3390/insects15030196
NO This research was funded by the Ministère des Forêts, de la Faune etndes Parcs (MFFP)and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Alliance grantALLRP 560575-20.
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 31 may 2026