The Beartooth Highway has a new interpretive sign. 

In late June, members of the Society of American foresters and employees of the Wapiti Ranger District of the Shoshone National Forest installed a sign highlighting the decline of the whitebark pine and as a keystone species of the adjacent ecosystem. 

The sign is located about a half mile past the Top of the World on an easily accessible path.

A keystone species shapes the characteristics and health of an ecosystem. The whitebark pine is an extremely important species in the subalpine ecosystem. They are a high-energy food source for the Clark’s nutcracker, squirrels, bears, and other wildlife. The trees are soil stabilizers, growing in rocky, undeveloped soils and can withstand cold, snowy, windswept exposures. 

First to establish following a disturbance; whitebark pine canopies regulate soil moisture and provide shade for other plant species. They also provide aesthetics and rewarding recreational experiences.

The species is one of five species known as  a stone pine. Stone Pine Cones are indehiscent, which means that the scales do not open when seeds are ripe, so the seeds are retained. Whitebark pine seeds are removed largely by Clark’s nutcracker and dispersed across the landscape.

The decline of whitebark pines is a result of several stressors, including the white pine blister rust fungus, mountain pine beetles, altered fire regimes and the warmer and drier effects from climate change, according to experts.

The Forest Service is taking several management actions to address the decline of the trees, including collecting cones from trees showing resistance to blister rust and pine beetles, collecting a living portion of the tree that is dormant and grafting it onto a healthy rootstock trees at a research nursery, establishing orchards by planting trees using collected cones and scion to reduce germination time, and spraying preventive pesticides. They are also thinning vegetation to reduce undesirable competition.

The society is a national nonprofit of natural resource professionals that promotes scientific management for forest resources for the greatest good, for the greatest number, for the long run. 

This is the second of three signs that the society and forest officials plan to install in this area. The first one was installed on the Chief Joseph Highway near Russell Creek. It describes the impacts of the spruce budworm and subsequent forest management.