Sharon Hood was featured on Seattle, Washington's KUOW Puget Sound Public Radio station for her recent publication with University of Montana researchers, Raul de la Mata and Anna Sala. See the highlight for her new publication.
Based on a long-term genetic experiment on Pinus ponderosa in western Montana, a study finds that fast-growing families of P. ponderosa had higher survival rates than slow-growing families prior to an outbreak of the herbivorous mountain pine beetle, but that the fast-growing families had lower survival rates than slow-growing families after the outbreak, suggesting a mechanism for the maintenance of genetic diversity in the long-lived species.
View the full article: de la Mata R, Hood S, Sala A (2017) Insect outbreak shifts the direction of selection from fast to slow growth rates in the long-lived conifer Pinus ponderosa.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1700032114
View the supporting data archive: de la Mata, Raul; Hood, Sharon M.; Sala, Anna. 2017. Growth and survival before and after a mountain pine beetle outbreak in a ponderosa pine genetic trial. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive.