Past infestations of the white pine weevil in naturally regenerated sprucestands

Past infestations of the white pine weevil, Pissodes strobi (Peck), were re constructed by examining standing and felled trees in naturally regenerated interior spruce stands in the McGregor Model Forest in northern B.C. infes tations were common in both the Sub-Boreal Spruce (SBS), wet cool (SBSwk) a nd very wet cool (SBSvk) biogeoclimatic subzones, demonstrating that freque nt weeviling is a natural event that predates human intervention. Approxima tely one-third of all stem defects in 32 felled trees were verified as caus ed by the weevil. In the SBSwk and SBSvk 56.3% and 81.3% of felled trees co ntained weevil-caused defects, with 1.9 and 2.1 defects per tree, respectiv ely. Trees in the SBSvk had significantly more weevil attacks high on the b ole than trees in the SBSwk.