Discovery of continental-scale travelling waves and lagged synchrony in geometrid moth outbreaks prompt a re-evaluation of mountain birch/geometrid studies [v1; ref status: indexed, http://f1000r.es/nr]

• Published in: F1000Research
• Main Author: Olle Tenow
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: F1000 Research Ltd 2013
• Subjects: Community Ecology & Biodiversity; Population Ecology; Medicine; R; Science; Q; Fennoscandia
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.2-128.v1; https://doaj.org/article/c44791d1348e4a64b2a3fe1586b05ec5

The spatio-temporal dynamics of populations of two 9-10 year cyclic-outbreaking geometrids, Operophtera brumata and Epirrita autumnata in mountain birch forests in northern Fennoscandia, have been studied since the 1970´s by a Swedish-Norwegian research team and, during the last decade, by Norwegian and Finnish research teams. Some of the early results have been challenged by the Norwegian team. To examine the base for disagreements, five of the papers published by the Norwegian team (2004-2011) are reviewed. It is found that conclusions in these papers are questionable or data could not be interpreted fully because two decisive traits in the spatio-temporal behaviour of outbreaks of the two species were not considered.