EDMONTON — Newly published research says mountain pine beetles have become so widespread that they’re not just benefiting from global warming, they’re starting to add to it.
Scientists have long suspected the warming climate has allowed the tree-killing bugs to spread into forests they used to be frozen out of.
But biologist Holly Maness suggests widespread damage by the beetles means energy from the sun that used to be absorbed and released by trees is being soaked up and held in the ground.
The University of Toronto researcher says the bugs are probably responsible for an average summertime temperature increase of about one degree Celsius over about 20 per cent of British Columbia.
Her paper in the journal Nature Geoscience says nobody yet knows what the impact is on other variables such as rainfall, groundwater or snow melt.
Maness says the findings are an example of how a change in one part of an ecosystem can create unexpected conditions elsewhere.