Publication Date:
1999-08-14
Description:
Population cycles occur frequently in forest insects. Time-series analysis of fluctuations in one such insect, the southern pine beetle (Dendroctonus frontalis), suggests that beetle dynamics are dominated by an ecological process acting in a delayed density-dependent manner. The hypothesis that delayed density dependence in this insect results from its interaction with predators was tested with a long-term predator-exclusion experiment. Predator-imposed mortality was negligible during the increase phase, grew during the year of peak population, and reached a maximum during the period of population decline. The delayed nature of the impact of predation suggests that predation is an important process that contributes significantly to southern pine beetle oscillations.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Turchin -- Taylor -- Reeve -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1999 Aug 13;285(5430):1068-71.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269-3043, USA. Department of Zoology, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA. Southern Research Station, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10446053" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
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Chemistry and Pharmacology
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Computer Science
,
Medicine
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Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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