Against all odds, one species is making a comeback! Whitebark Pine! At the top of the mountain, where few other trees even try to survive, this species thrives. It is a keystone species that has developed a particularly peculiar way of spreading its young about the mountain side. Co-evolution anyone? If you like old trees, cool birds, species killing fungi, and most importantly, a story of hope, than this is the podcast for you!
Resources
Planting the Future: Saving whitebark and limber pine
Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation
Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation of Canada
Sponsors
Quotes
1.12.12 - 1.12.20: “One of the most important things and hopeful things you can do is plant a tree under whose shade you won’t sit.”
Takeaways
“King of trees” (06.12)
Amelie, a communications officer, considers whitebark pine an impressive tree and communicates the passion of the scientists in their restoration efforts, to move whitebark pine from the mountains into the collective consciousness of the people. Brenda, an ecologist for Jasper, leads a team of field biologists on ecological monitoring and species-at-risk recovery. She has worked with whitebark pine for 20 years.
Telltale signs of whitebark pine (9.42)
Brenda notes that whitebark pine has a wide occurrence range and lists the areas in North America where they can be found. Contrary to their name, their bark is not white, but silver, and their thick canopy makes them look like broccoli tops from a distance. Another way to spot them is the sound of a Clark’s Nutcracker. Amelie points out another distinguishing feature is that whitebark pine needles occur in bunches of five instead of two.
Mutualism (15.52)
Brenda discusses the mutualism between the whitebark pine and the Clark’s Nutcracker, from the corvid family, where both benefit each other. The Clark’s Nutcracker opens the cones of the whitebark pine and stays healthy on its high-fat seeds. It has evolved a pouch under its tongue to store up to 90 seeds of the tree, caching them in groups of five in different locations to revisit months later. The seeds left behind grow closely into gnarly, closeby whitebark pines.
Keystone and pioneering species (23.02)
Brenda finds that the whitebark pine is important for many species of birds and small mammals. Bears also eat the cones, as evidenced by the marks they leave after climbing the trees. Fire suppression in the past has left older whitebark pine forests, but they compete with small pine fir, which can colonize an area after a fire. High-intensity fires could burn whitebark pine stands, but prescribed fires could be beneficial to their survival.
Whitebark pine proliferation (28.22)
Amelie describes the Clark’s Nutcracker’s specialized beak, which can open the hard egg-shaped cones of the whitebark pine. The bird’s range is 12-28 km, which is an important consideration when restoring whitebark pines. Brenda cites a study in the USA which fitted the birds with satellite transmitters to understand how far they can move the tree's seeds. It was found that they will often cache the seeds close to the tree they collected them from.
“A species that gives back more to the ecosystem than it takes” (33.28)
Brenda expects the subalpine ecosystem to be different with the loss of whitebark pine, a community on which many species rely. Blister rust, a disease that came into North America around 1900 from Europe, has moved to every part of the whitebark pine range in the last 100 years. The trees do not have resistance to the infection, whose spores enter the needles and spread through the branches to the main stem, producing a canker, eventually killing the tree.
Threats to whitebark pine (41.18)
Brenda narrates how pruning off branches has proven to be ineffective in fighting blister rust in whitebark pine. She ranks the areas in North America on the severity of the disease. Her team is exploring the factors that make blister rust grow more in some areas. She talks about how the mountain pine beetle attacked whitebark pine in Jasper and the conditions they thrive in. The infection, beetle, fire suppression and climate change are all threats to whitebark pine.
100 Tree Survey (50.59)
Brenda is grateful to the Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation from the USA which paved the way for restoring whitebark pine across North America. Her role in Parks Canada is to help whitebark pine recover and survive. They visit 100 large-diameter trees in the stand in mast years and assess them for signs of recovery from blister rust infection. They climb these naturally resistant trees to collect mature cones for research.
Developing infection resistance (56.50)
Brenda’s team extracts the seeds from infection-resistant whitebark pine cones and sends them to nurseries to grow. They test them in labs to verify how resistant they are. Two years later, they take the seedlings back to the park. The Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation of Canada is working on planting resisting seedlings in Alberta and BC. The work in Canada is helping plan for future recovery and create a self-sustaining blister rust-resistant whitebark pine population.
Protecting whitebark pine from beetles (1.03.17)
Brenda’s team applies 2 packets to the valuable whitebark pines every spring that send chemical messages to mountain pine beetles - one saying that this tree is already full of the mountain pine beetle, and another saying it is a deciduous tree. These packets have been found to save 60% of the trees that would have otherwise died. However, it has only been found to work on individual trees, not stands.
“Everybody’s favourite day is planting day” (1.09.27)
Brenda shares that there are currently 140 whitebark pines scattered through Jasper National Park that they believe are resistant. Live testing helps verify this. They have collected over 200,000 seeds from one of the verified resistant trees to plant them. She talks about the care and effort it takes to plant them, and the importance of planting them at fair distances in microsites to provide extra protection for the tree’s survival.
A video speaks a million words (1.14.29)
Amelie is proud of the video that seven mountain parks in Canada came together to create. The communicators across the parks share knowledge and messages to ensure consistency in their communications, and they came together on the video to raise awareness of the whitebark conversation program. The aim is to plant 10,000 trees a year with a 50-60% survival rate. The video shares the belief of scientists that developing rust resistance is the way ahead.
Do your part (1.19.49)
Brenda is encouraged by how the video has inspired whitebark pine restoration efforts in Alberta and BC. Amelie highlights that Brenda’s team has planted 97,000 trees in the mountain parks thus far. Brenda believes that visiting the beautiful whitebark pine forests and supporting the Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation of Canada are two ways in which each person can be a part of the conservation efforts.
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