The Bark Beetle Technical Working Group is a small informal group of entomologists, mostly from the United States but also from Canada, who work with bark beetles. We gather yearly, usually somewhere in the western US, to discuss the status of bark beetle caused forest mortality, management related research on bark beetles--both ongoing and needed, and provide a forum for sharing and/or developing management strategies and philosophies relative to bark beetles and managing host stands to reduce beetle-caused impacts. Most of the participants have been USDA Forest Service employees, both Forest Health Protection (FHP) and Research (FSR), but we are well-represented by entomologists who work for State agencies and Universities. The key to the success of this group meeting has been the shared experiences and ready discussion, despite changes in the annual meeting objectives.
We first met in 1988, and since that time, have met at least once yearly. In the early days of our organization, we were called the Bark Beetle Steering Committee, and in that role were instrumental in recommending research or field experiments for Federal funding. The technology development-funding process has changed over the years, and our role has also changed. Now, we are more a group of individuals (~12-40 total) who meet to mostly share ideas, experiences, and encourage research to explore and answer common questions. We are recognized as a viable organization by the USDA FS Washington Office (WO), and were asked by FHP/FSR-WO, in both 2004 and 2005, to rank research proposals and make recommendations for allocation of FHP funding, made available for western bark beetle research.
In 2006, we developed a list of bark beetle-related research priorities that we believe are helping to guide research programs in the West. They are incorporated in the latest meeting notes, from the meeting in October 2006, held at Fairmont Hot Springs, MT. At one time we did have a "5-year plan;" however, at the 2006 meeting, we elected to develop the "research priority list" in lieu of updating the 5-year plan. We believe that may have more relevance.
return to the Bark Beetle Technical Working Group's website
This webpage was last updated on February 6, 2007; reformatted May 2008.
Contact Brytten Steed regarding this website's content,
or Kathy Sheehan regarding website design.
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