Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

The Southern Pine Beetle (SPB) (Dendroctonus frontalis) is a native pest of pine trees
in the Southeast US. It is the most significant pest of forests in the region (Fettig et al., 2007).
The potential effect of silvicultural treatments on reducing damages from southern pine beetle
depends on treatments and the assumed probability of damages in a region. This research
evaluated the stand level benefits and costs of prevention treatments used to reduce damages
from Southern Pine Beetles.
For the 13 southern states, a broad set of treatments were applied to a set of
representative stands to characterize the SPB Prevention Program impacts. The representative
stands were used in a growth and yield model and were projected into the future under various
conditions and treatments. The products from the growth and yield model were then used to
estimate soil expectation value (SEV), which was adjusted to account for the risk associated
with the probability of tree mortality from SPB (Martell, 1980). The probability of tree
mortality from SPB was generated from United States Forest Service (USFS) Forest
Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data across the Southeast (Pye et al., 2008).
Results indicated that planted stands would benefit from commercial thinning
treatments when compared to control treatments. Pre-commercial thinning treatments
resulted in lower SEVs than the control or commercial thinning treatments for planted stands.
Results for natural stands suggested that control (no treatment) led to higher SEVs than
commercial thinning treatments. The results suggest that components of the prevention
program may not be financially justified in terms of stand level SEVs. However, further
research is necessary to determine if the ecological effects of the treatments warrant financial
support for the program.