Alaska Map of Bark Beetle Presence

Abstract

A shapefile that we created after compiling 838 records of 68 bark beetle species, as the presence points for the model, provided by the University of Alaska Museum (UAM; http://arctos.database.museum/SpecimenSearch.cfm) in a separate tabulated record for each species. The geographic projection was set at NAD 1983 Alaska Albers. The year the species were identified varied from 1953 to 2018, with nearly half being observed after 2011. Among the pooled bark beetle species, the most dominant genera were, Dryocoetes (n=133), Trypodendron (n=107), Ips (n=104), and Dendroctonus (n=83) (Appendix I). And, the most common species were the striped ambrosia beetle (Trypodendron lineatum (n=74)), Dryocoetes affaber (n=69), the spruce beetle (Dendroctonus rufipennis (n=66)), and the northern spruce engraver (Ips perturbatus (n=52)). The host evergreen trees from which the bark beetle specimens were collected consisted of white spruce (Picea glauca), black spruce (P. mariana), Sitka spruce (P. sitchensis), western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla), lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta), mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana), Lutz spruce (P.a x lutzii), Tamarack (Larix laricina), Yellow cedar (Cupressus nootkatensis), and Western red cedar (Thuja plicata)).