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Abstract
Hurricane Michael caused immense damage in Southwest Georgia passing directly over the Jones Center at Ichauway on October 2018. This area includes 11,400 ha of longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) forest, which is a threatened ecosystem across the southeastern USA. After wind damaging events, the stress endured by the forests can make them highly susceptible to secondary agents such as bark beetles and blue-stain fungi, which overall exacerbate their already compromised health. With this thesis, we seek to better understand the effects of post-storm management practices such as salvage logging and subsequent prescribed burns have on longleaf pine associated lower stem and root-feeding beetles and their symbiotic blue-stain fungi. In our first study, we analyzed the abundance of six bark beetle species for two years following Hurricane Michael and that of blue-stain propagules on Hylobius pales and Pachylobius picivorus after different three management possibilities and found that time, and not the treatments, was the main driver of beetle abundance in the year following the hurricane. We did see a delayed effect of the first-year management activities. Abundance of Dendroctonus terebrans, Hylastes porculus, and H. tenuis increased in the second year of collection, the year following the management activities. We also found that there was no significant difference in the number of blue-stain propagules across management treatments. In the second study, we identified the species of blue-stain fungi phoretically carried by three target beetles and within longleaf pine roots. We found Leptographium profanum and Ophiostoma ips on root-feeding beetles, L. terebrantis on Dendroctonus terebrans, and L. profanum in one longleaf pine root. In our system, post-hurricane management strategies did not affect the abundance of lower stem and root feeding beetles and their symbiotic blue-stain fungi in a longleaf pine ecosystem to. We also found L. profanum, which had been previously isolated only from hardwoods, to be abundant in the longleaf pine-root feeding insect system.