Eruptive insect outbreaks from endemic populations under climate change

Abstract

Insects, especially forest pests, are frequently characterized by eruptive dynamics. These types of species can stay at low, endemic population densities for extended periods of time before erupting in large-scale outbreaks. We here present a mechanistic model of these dynamics for mountain pine beetle. This extends a recent model that describes key aspects of mountain pine beetle biology coupled with a forest growth model by additionally including a fraction of low-vigor trees. These low-vigor trees, which may represent hosts with weakened defenses from drought, disease, other bark beetles, or other stressors, give rise to an endemic equilibrium in biologically plausible parameter ranges. The mechanistic nature of the model allows us to study how each model parameter affects the existence and size of the endemic equilibrium. We then show that under certain parameter shifts that are more likely under climate change, the endemic equilibrium can disappear entirely, leading to an outbreak.