Suzanne’s friend Sara Van Note is heading off to Central America to research a story, but before leaving, she filed this report on a wasp that is being used to fight the emerald ash borer.
“A swampy forest in the floodplain of the Merrimack River is one of the first places in New Hampshire where the dreaded emerald ash borer was discovered. These days, Molly Heuss of the New Hampshire Division of Forestry and Lands knows just how to find the tree-munching beetles lurking in green and black ash. …
“In recent years, the emerald ash borer has chewed its way through tens of millions of ashes across 24 states and two Canadian provinces, and counting.”
So scientists have decided to use a parasitic wasp to combat the menace.
“The parasites are descendants of wasps brought to the US from China, where the borer is also from. And they are very tiny. ‘About the size of a pin,’ says entomologist Juli Gould, of the US Department of Agriculture in Massachusetts. …
“The borers themselves were discovered in North America in 2002. They probably got here by stowing away in shipping crates. Scientists here knew nothing about them at the time, so Gould says they began working with colleagues in China to find a way to control the bugs.” More here.
Using the parasitic wasp is a last-ditch effort, and other scientists worry that the wasp could end up doing other things that are less desirable. That’s always a possibility, as Erik pointed out the other day when I showed him an article in the Providence Journal about a local effort to beat back a winter moth infestation. The article said that the parasitic fly Cyzenis albicans dines only on winter moths, so no worries. But Erik was skeptical. The best laid plans of mice and men …
Photo: John Cameron
Mountain Ash in New Hampshire
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