Texas Fauna Project

Southern Pine Bark Beetle

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Richard “Dick” Conner, Ph.D., is Scientist Emeritus in the Wildlife Habitat and Silviculture Laboratory, a part of the Southern Research Station in Nacogdoches, an operation of the U.S. Forest Service. He has studied a number of topics, but is very well known for his work with the red-cockaded woodpecker, a species that greatly favors the longleaf pine for building its nesting cavities. Here he describes how the decline of the longleaf pine, and its replacement by loblolly pines, led to severe pine bark beetle outbreaks.