Credit NPS Photo / Jim Ecklund
A new study finds that bark beetle infestations and wildfires may change the structure of forests.
Colorado State University researcher Zoe Schapira measured and classified the components of subalpine forests in Colorado and Wyoming. She did this for healthy areas and forests that had been affected by bark beetles or burned by wildfires.
Schapira said forests with trees killed by beetles or wildfires had a lot of dead trees on the ground. But she said there were also signs of trees regrowing, which tells scientists about the future of the forest.
"We saw pretty much similar tree regeneration in the beetle outbreak sites compared to our control, or the sites that didn't really have a lot of mortality," said Schapira. "But after the fires, there was really minimal subalpine tree species regeneration, if any."