This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
Mutualisms are important drivers of ecosystem structure and function but little is known about how their stability may be influenced by changes in the environment. The mountain pine beetle (MPB, Dendroctonus ponderosae) has two fungal symbionts (Ophiostoma montium, Grosmannia clavigera) that provide rood resources that are critical for growth and reproduction of the beetle. The two fungi possess different thermal growth ranges, allowing the beetle to inhabit a broader range of habitats that support at least one of the fungus species. However, warming due to climate change is likely to decouple these mutualisms as the distribution of the fungi or the beetle shift with changes in temperature. Temperature-driven developmental models will be developed for the two fungi and then coupled to an existing MPB model. Together, these models will be used to predict prevalence of the two fungi with their beetle host under differing temperature regimes allowing a more realistic prediction of how climate change will affect future distributions of this important insect. In addition to generating information that will be useful for forest resource managers, two graduate and three undergraduate students will receive mathematically-driven biological training. Outreach to popular audiences will be facilitated by communications graduate students at UM and USU. Lessons on mathematical synchrony for secondary education outreach will be developed by math education graduates and Utah secondary teachers, and project-based educational modules will be developed and implemented at the post-secondary level.
