Pinus albicaulis, known by the common names whitebark pine, white bark pine, white pine, pitch pine, scrub pine, and creeping pine, is a conifer tree native to the mountains of the western United States ...

Why are whitebark pine endangered?

Threats to the whitebark pine include habitat loss and mortality from white pine blister rust, mountain pine beetle, catastrophic fire and fire suppression, environmental effects resulting from climate change, and the inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms.

How old is whitebark pine?

Individual whitebark pines have been known to live 400 to 1,000 years and can grow to over 90 feet in height, but today, their survival as a species is jeopardized by mountain pine beetle outbreaks, altered fire regimes, climate change and a fungal infection called white pine blister rust.

Where can you find whitebark pine?

The range of Whitebark Pine extends from Northern British Columbia south to Northern Nevada, and from the coastal mountains of the Pacific Northwest east to the Wind River Range in Wyoming.

Why are whitebark pines important?

Whitebark pine is considered a keystone species in high elevation ecosystems because it increases biodiversity and contributes to critical ecosystem functions. It is frequently the first conifer to become established after disturbances like wildfires and subsequently stabilizes soils and regulates runoff.

Whitebark Pines: Endangered Trees

What kind of pine trees are in Yellowstone?

Forests cover roughly 80% of the park. Lodgepole pine, Engelmann spruce, subalpine fir, whitebark pine, and limber pine are found at higher elevations. Though ubiquitous throughout the park, Douglas-fir is particularly abundant in the northern region. Their thick bark enable them to tolerate low-intensity fire.

How do you identify whitebark pine?

The best way to tell the two trees apart is through their cones. During the growing season limber pine cones are green and oblong. Whitebark pine cones are purple and spherical.

How do whitebark pines reproduce?

Clark's nutcrackers each cache about 30,000 to 100,000 seeds each year in small, widely scattered caches, usually under 2 to 3 cm (3⁄4 to 11⁄4 in) of soil or gravelly substrate. ... Consequently, whitebark pine often grows in clumps of several trees, originating from a single cache of two to 15 or more seeds.

What animals eat whitebark pine?

Squirrels also do the bears the favor of concentrating cones in large caches in middens of spongy cone debris accumulated over many years of squirrel activity. Whitebark pine seeds are an important food for grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) and black bears (U. americanus) wherever whitebark pine is common.

What is the rarest tree in the United States?

“This is a very special place for many reasons, but one of them is that it's the home of what is probably the rarest tree in the United States, if not in North America: Cercocarpus traskiae,” said Catalina Island Conservancy Botanist and Native Plant Manager Seth Kauppinen.

What is the rarest tree on earth?

Pennantia baylisiana—aka the Three Kings Kaikomako—is the rarest species of tree in the world. There is only one remaining species in the wild, on Three Kings Islands in New Zealand. The species was decimated by goats in the countryside, which were removed from its vicinity for conservation efforts.

What tree is extinct?

Wood's Cycad. Like the Saint Helena Olive tree, Wood's Cycad (Encephalartos woodii) went extinct in the wild more recently. The last known wild specimen died in 1916. It is one of the rarest plants on Earth now, cultivated only in captivity.

What factors limit the success of the whitebark pines?

Limiting factors and threats

Whitebark Pine is imminently and severely threatened throughout its range by four human-influenced factors: White Pine Blister Rust (an introduced species), Mountain Pine Beetle, fire exclusion, and climate change.

Why bark beetles are chewing through US forests?

The combination of increasing stress on trees and decreasing limits on the beetles' range and winter survival, say scientists, makes it almost inevitable that the insects will continue to experience a population boom — at the expense of the great conifer forests of America's mountain west. Warming Winters in the U.S.

Are white pines protected?

Whitebark Pine and Limber Pine trees are protected by law in Banff National Park. Whitebark Pine and Limber Pine trees are protected by law under the Canada National Parks Act. It is illegal to cut, kill, or harm these trees; including causing damage to bark or roots.

What are two characteristics of the whitebark pine?

Whitebark pine can grow to 12–18 m tall (40–60 ft) and, rarely, up to 1.5 m (5 ft) in diameter. They are shorter, or even shrub-like, in Krummholz form, at higher, windier elevations. The bark is thin, scaly, and grayish. Their needles are 4–10 cm long (1.5–3 in), in clumps of 5 at the ends of upswept branches.

What bird eats the seeds out of the cones of the white bark pine?

Clark's nutcracker, a raucous and charismatic bird in the crow and jay family, frequents the higher elevations of the mountain west where it forages largely on whitebark pine seeds and caches thousands for later use.

What is whitebark pine wood used for?

Whitebark pines stabilize steep slopes, influence the amount of snow melt by sustaining snow drifts, and provide critical food, cover and shelter for many species of wildlife.

How do you identify a bristlecone pine?

The best way to distinguish the Great Basin Bristlecone pine from the Limber pine is to look at the needles, which on the bristlecones are about one-inch-long and grow in packets of five. The needles completely surround the branches in tightly-bunched tufts.

Is limber pine a white pine?

Limber Pine/Rocky Mountain White Pine (Pinus flexilis)

What killed trees in Yellowstone?

The greater Yellowstone ecosystem, an area the size of South Carolina sprawling for 31,000 square miles across Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, has been hit particularly hard by beetle outbreak. Since 2009, more than 95 percent of the large trees in the region have succumbed to pine beetles.

Whats killing the pine trees in Wyoming?

The mountain pine beetle is a true predator on many western pine trees because to successfully reproduce, the beetles must kill host trees. ... Attacked lodgepole pine trees cut a gray and brown swath through the Medicine Bow National Forest in southeastern Wyoming. Photo: National Agriculture Imagery Program.

Why are there so many dead trees in Utah?

“Frass is just fundamentally a mixture of insects' poop and boring dust.” (Brian Maffly | The Salt Lake Tribune) A juniper tree on Utah's Alkali Ridge, east of Blanding, shows signs of beetle infestation. The U.S. Forest Service has concluded drought is the main reason junipers are dying in southeastern Utah.