Combining empirical and mechanistic understanding of spruce bark beetle outbreak dynamics in the LPJ-GUESS (v4.1, r13130) vegetation model

Lagergren, Fredrik; Jönsson, Anna Maria; Lindeskog, Mats; Pugh, Thomas A. M.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-8071-2025

Articles | Volume 18, issue 21

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-8071-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-8071-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 21

Development and technical paper

|

30 Oct 2025

Development and technical paper |

| 30 Oct 2025

Combining empirical and mechanistic understanding of spruce bark beetle outbreak dynamics in the LPJ-GUESS (v4.1, r13130) vegetation model

Fredrik Lagergren, Anna Maria Jönsson, Mats Lindeskog, and Thomas A. M. Pugh

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-8071-2025-supplement

Data sets

Simulation results underlaying: Combining empirical and mechanistic understanding of spruce bark beetle outbreak dynamics in the LPJ-GUESS (v4.1, r13130) vegetation model (Version 1) F. Lagergren et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14415079

Model code and software

Code and simulation setting underlaying: Combining empirical and mechanistic understanding of spruce bark beetle outbreak dynamics in the LPJ-GUESS (v4.1, r13130) vegetation model (Version 1) F. Lagergren et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14411974

Interactive computing environment

LPJ-GUESS/spruce_bark_beetle: Processing scripts for LPJ-GUESS spruce bark beetle model simulations (Version ver1) F. Lagergren and T. A. M. Pugh https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17256409

Short summary

The European spruce bark beetle (SBB) has, in recent years, been the most important disturbance agent in many European forests. We implemented a SBB module in a dynamic vegetation model and calibrated it against observations from Sweden, Switzerland, Austria and France. The start and duration of outbreaks triggered by storm damage and the increased damage driven by recent warm and dry periods were reasonably well simulated, although the spread was reflected in uncertain parameter estimates.