The spruce bark beetle outbreak in Southcentral Alaska is the largest natural disturbance event to affect terrestrial ecosystems in Alaska since the 1964 earthquake, and its impacts will persist for decades. The sections found here discussing impacts to specific ecosystem components are reprinted from a 2001 US Forest Service publication titled "Forest Health Restoration in South-Central Alaska: A Problem Analysis" written by Darrell W. Ross, Gary E. Daterman, Jerry L. Boughton, and Thomas M. Quigley.
The entire publication can be viewed at: http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/gtr523.pdf
The extensive tree mortality that resulted from the spruce beetle outbreak affects all aspects of the forest ecosystem. Some of the ways in which the outbreak affects particular
ecosystem components and processes are described in the pages of this section. Use the tabs above to navigate through the impacts identified by Ross et al. The final "Other Research" tab provides links to other papers that discuss impacts of the outbreak.