Background

I did most of my undergraduate training at Umeå University, but received my degree in biology from Uppsala University, Sweden. In 1977, I arrived in Canada to complete a Master of Pest Management at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC. My supervisor, Dr. John H. Borden, convinced me to stay to do a Ph.D., which I completed in 1982. After a short time as a post-doctoral fellow with Dr. John A. McLean, UBC, I was hired as an industrial post-doctoral fellow by Phero Tech, Inc., a spin-off company of the Chemical Ecology Research Group at SFU. I stayed with Phero Tech as Research Director until 1994, when I accepted my current position at UNBC. The year prior to my departure from Phero Tech, I spent 6 months as a visiting scientist with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Uppsala, Sweden, where I had the privilege to work with Dr. Göran Nordlander on the pine weevil, Hylobius abietis. It was during this sabbatical that I was introduced to the Nordlander pitfall trap, which I now use extensively in ecological work.

Research interests

My education at SFU focused on pest management and applied entomology. My PhD dealt with pheromone-based management of ambrosia beetles in log-sorting yards. Results from this research included the multiple (Lindgren) funnel trap, which became a key early product for Phero Tech. At Phero Tech I primarily conducted research on semiochemical-based management of bark beetles, but I also contributed to other projects, including research on neem (led by Murray Isman, UBC), honey bee pheromones (Mark Winston and Keith Slessor, SFU), predator odors (Thomas Sullivan, UBC) and color sticky cards for greenhouse crops. Since arriving at UNBC, I have shifted my research to insect-plant interactions, and forest insect ecology and diversity. Examples of current projects and interests are:

• Factors affecting conifer susceptibility to insect attack. I am interested in the reproductive strategies of insects that are “parasites” of conifers, e.g., pitch moths (Lepidoptera: Sesiidae and Pyralidae), the boreal (Allegheny) spruce beetle (Dendroctonus punctatus) (Coleoptera: Scolytidae), and the Warren root collar weevil (Hylobius warreni) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae). These insects attack apparently healthy or moderately stressed trees, usually without killing them. Coping with the resinous defenses of coniferous hosts must be metabolically expensive, but this cost is presumably offset by escape from predation, parasitism and interspecific competition.
• Forest Insect Ecology, particularly effects by insects on forest succession, and effects by forest management on insect fauna, in particular ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) and ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Numerous studies on the effect of anthropogenic disturbance on the ground beetle fauna have been conducted, usually indicating more or less long-term effects on forest specialist species. Research by my former graduate student Jeff Lemieux failed to detect such effects in high elevation forests. I am interested in how interactions among competing taxa, as well as climatic factors influence the community structure of epigaeic insects.
• Bark beetle ecology and management. I have collaborated with scientists from the Canadian Forest Service (primarily Allan Carroll and Terry Shore), as well as UNBC (Peter Jackson) on several projects investigating mountain pine beetle population dynamics and ecosystem impacts. Along with my former post-doctoral fellow, Dr. Niklas Björklund, (now at SLU, Sweden), and several graduate students, I have conducted research on population dynamics and management of northern populations of the mountain pine beetle.