Abstract
The recent climate-exacerbated mountain pine beetle infestation in the Rocky Mountains of North America has resulted in tree death that is unprecedented in recorded history. The spatial and temporal heterogeneity inherent in insect infestation creates a complex and often unpredictable watershed response, influencing the primary storage and flow components of the hydrologic cycle. Despite the increased vulnerability of forested ecosystems under changing climate1, watershed-scale implications of interception, ground evaporation, and transpiration changes remain relatively unknown, with conflicting reports of streamflow perturbations across regions. Here, contributions to streamflow are analysed through time and space to investigate the potential for increased groundwater inputs resulting from hydrologic change after infestation. Results demonstrate that fractional late-summer groundwater contributions from impacted watersheds are 30 ± 15% greater after infestation and when compared with a neighbouring watershed that experienced earlier and less-severe attack, albeit uncertainty propagations through time and space are considerable. Water budget analysis confirms that transpiration loss resulting from beetle kill can account for the relative increase in groundwater contributions to streams, often considered the sustainable flow fraction and critical to mountain water supplies and ecosystems.
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Acknowledgements
This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. WSC-1204787, the USGS-National Institute of Water Resources under Grant No. 2011CO245G Subaward G-2914-1 and through the Water, Energy, and Biogeochemical Budgets program and USGS/NPS Partnership program.
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L.A.B. and R.M.M. conceived the study, L.A.B. and D.W.C. collected and analysed the data, and L.A.B., R.M.M., D.W.C. and J.E.M. interpreted results and contributed to writing.
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Bearup, L., Maxwell, R., Clow, D. et al. Hydrological effects of forest transpiration loss in bark beetle-impacted watersheds. Nature Clim Change 4, 481–486 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2198
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2198
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