Sugar pine, the Queen of the Sierras, is the largest-growing pine species in the world. However, they face enormous challenges in the Anthropocene.
Sugar pines are threatened by an overabundance of high severity fire, an invasive fungal pathogen, a dearth of “good fire”, and a changing climate. Managers and researchers working in Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks saw local sugar pine populations imploding under these pressures.
To help them understand where and how to invest resources to protect this important species, I performed a range-wide demographic analysis evaluating the importance of these stressors and the outlook for sugar pines across their range. The peer-reviewed study is available at Forest Ecology and Management.