CLIMATE CHANGE EFFECTS ON MULTIPLE STRESSORS IN THE ROCKIES

Species-environmental matching models, or niche models, are being increasingly used for modeling and mapping of suitable habitat for native and harmful non-native invasive species under current and future climate. Our objective was to model the potential habitat suitability simultaneously for several important forest pathogens and insects including: White Pine Blister Rust (Cronartium ribicola), and four most damaging pine beetles (mountain pine beetles, western pine beetles, pine engraver and ips engraver) in the central Rocky Mountains. We used maximum entropy modeling algorithm (or Maxent) to model species current climatic envelop and projected the models to future climatic scenarios using three different global climate models: CCCMA, HadCM3, and CSIRO, for two time horizons (2020 and 2050). To account for uncertainty in different global climatic models we used an ensemble approach. We calculated the areas of potential habitat that would be gained, lost, and remain stable under changing climate for different species. Results from this study can guide land managers’ decisions and aid planning for management of multiple forest stressors under changing climate in the Rockies.