Blogger's Note:The following was provided by French & Pickering Creeks Conservation Trust.
The emerald ash borer is an invasive insect species.
In partnership with Historic Yellow Springs, French & Pickering Creeks Conservation Trust invites you to attend an exciting Third Thursday Talk on Oct. 17 at 7 p.m to discuss local invasive fish, fowl and flora with special guest, ecologist Scott Bush.
Bush will identify pesky pests on our area, present information on their origins and history in Chester County, their impact on our environment, and offer some control strategies.
The presentation and discussion will last 90 minutes and is suitable for anyone who wants to be well-equipped with information while battling the consequences of invasive species in Chester County.
This free event will be held at Historic Yellow Springs.
For the most accurate directions, set your GPS to 1701 Art School Road Chester Springs, PA 19425.
The snakehead is an invasive fish species.
French & Pickering Creeks Conservation Trust seeks to strengthen the connection between northern Chester County residents and nature.
They believe that education is a crucial foundation for fostering a deep relationship between our community and the environment.
For upcoming educational events, including Second Sunday Hikes and Third Thursday Talks, be sure to check the website, www.frenchandpickering.org/events/
French & Pickering Creeks Conservation Trust has been protecting and preserving land in Northern Chester County for over half a century. It is a non-profit guided by a small board and staff who value open space, and community.
The lifespan of the invasive spotted lanternfly is laid out on a slide from last night's presentation on how bad the problem is and how to combat the pest.
The map on the left shows the first five Berks County townships where quarantine efforts began. At right is the counties where a quarantine is now in place.
The fight against a pervasive alien insect was laid out in stark terms last night, as well as strategies for fighting them.
First spotted in western Berks County in 2014, authorities have worked to contain the invasion of the spotted lanternfly, an insect native to China and Vietnam, but apparently jumped the Pacific on a pallet of stone delivered to Berks county at some point.
Since its arrival, it has spread from one to 13 counties in Southeastern Pennsylvania and is making inroads into Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey.
But things could be worse, said Evan Corondi, an insect expert with the Berks County Conservation District who gave a presentation on the invader at Pottstown Borough Hall Thursday night.
The cluster of red dots show the only places in the state where spotted lanternfly have been found.
In four years, it has spread to only seven additional counties. When the spotted lanternfly arrived in Korea, it had spread across the entire country in three years, he said.
"So I know it can seem like the effort's not worth it. But it's working. The things we're doing to control it are working," he said to the group of about 90 people who all expressed exasperation with their efforts to eradicate the pest.
One woman, who said she is having eight tree of heaven trees in her yard taken down next week, said the stink from the insects excrement is terrible. "We haven't used my back yard all summer. It smells like a urinal."
The "tree of heaven," which scientists call ailanthus altissima, is itself an invasive species, which is very hard to kill. It also is from Asia and is the spotted lanternfly's favorite food, although the bug is quickly developing a taste for native North American trees, including fruit trees, valuable hardwoods and grapevines.
This photo shows a backyard tree, at right, covered with adult spotted lanternfly. At left, the bottom step has been power-washed, while the ones above remain coated with the "sooty mold" they excrete.
When they feed, the lanternfly harms trees in two ways. The first is when it pierces the bark to feed on the nutrients in the layer beneath, robbing the tree of nutrients as well as leaving a hole for other insects or disease access to the tree's interior.
The second way is what the insect excretes. Called "honeydew," it is sweet and stickly, but which turns black into what Corondi called "sooty mold," which coats leaves and impedes photosynthesis, as well as emitting the odor referred to above.
Here is video of spotted lanterfly on grape vines, excreting the "honeydew" that can impede photosynthesis:
Egg mass.
The spotted lanternfly has five stages of life, beginning with the gray egg masses, which look like a mass of mud, usually vertically oriented on trees, rocks or even the siding of your house.
The adults are current mating and laying those eggs. Each egg mass contains between 30 to 50 eggs.
They can be hard to spot because when fresh, they are a gray mass, usually laid on an equally gray surface and, as they dry out, turn a dull gray," said Corondi.
Although he said "now is a perfect time to kill the adults," as they are just starting to lay eggs and fewer adults means fewer egg masses.
However, in a few weeks, the masses will mostly be laid and efforts to combat the pest should turn to scraping them off any surface they are seen.
A credit card works best and experts advise having some kind of container or plastic bad to scrape the egg mass into. Once contained, rubbing alcohol will kill the eggs.
An alternative is to crush them," said Corondi, an exercise he admitted he finds particularly satisfying. "They make this kind of popping sound," he said with a smile.
Here is some video of Corondi talking about ways to control the spotted lanternfly, including proper egg-scraping technique:
This exhibit
shows the spotted lanternfly life cycle.
As the temperature drops, the adults get more lethargic and are easier to kill, but the first or second frost will kill them anyway.
Sadly, the cold does not kill the eggs, which will be mostly laid by late November and will hatch in the spring into small nymphs about the size of a tick.
They grow to about the size of a dime and take on the striking red and black coloring with white spots.
In this state, the lanternfly is actually susceptible to being sprayed with soapy water as the film from the soap can keep the bugs from breathing through their skin. But once they grow wings, this method seems to work less well.
"I've killed hundreds of them with a plan old flyswatter," bragged one member of the audience.
Spotted lanternfly do not pose a risk to human health, but can affect forest hardwood products worth $16.7 billion in in Pennsylvania.
They like oak, maple and walnut and also affect apple and peach trees, an industry worth more than $119 million. In particular they pose a risk to Pennsylvania's $944 million nursery and landscape industry.
Here is some video of Corondi offering some general information about the spotted lanternfly invasion:
Several kinds of tape, including duct tape with the sticky side facing out, can capture spotted lanternfly at different times of the year because as it turns out, although they are called fly, "they're not very good flyers," said Corondi.
Early stages are most susceptible to being caught on taped trees.
They belong to a group of insects called "leaf hoppers" and spread by climbing tall trees or tall buildings and then leap into the wind to travel a long distance.
Of course they travel the longest distances by hitching rides on our cars, trains and freighters.
A variety of chemical weapons can be used. Several pesticides work, providing you can get close enough to use them.
But one ingenious strategy Corondi outlined is to use one invasive against the other.
A pesticide method calls "systemics" has the lanternfly warrior use a downward stroke to cut some holes in a tree infested with lanternfly and into these holes apply specific pesticides designed for this function.
The tree with take up the pesticide, which the lanternfly will ingest as it feeds on the tree.
Here is video of Corodni talking about how controlling the Tree of Heaven can also help to control and contain the invasive spotted lanternfly:
Corondi with a tree of heaven branch he displayed to familiarize
the audience with the species.
As Corondi said in the video, eliminating all but one or two tree of heaven in a wooded area will
force the lanternfly to focus on the remaining trees.
Using the systemic method then allows you to poison many more lanternfly with less poison, as well as eliminating more of the invasive trees.
Unfortunately, because the trees are going dormant for the winter, this kind of assault must wait for spring.
We know you've been urgently asking yourself "is it Saturday yet?"
Well, gentle reader, it's here and your patience is now rewarded with another satisfying installment of our sometime-series:
This Saturday in Science!
Lunch!
Having spent several science Saturdays in space, we thought this week we would bring things back
down to earth for a bit and spend some time with its inhabitants.
First up is the humble and hated mosquito.
If, like my wife, you are one of those people who can't look out a window without getting a mosquito bite, we have some good news for you.
Your belief that mosquitoes like you more (I've always told The Mrs. that mosquitoes keep away from me because of my inherently high blood-alcohol level), it turns out you are not a sad, paranoid sufferer of insect randomness -- YOU WERE RIGHT!
Mosquitoes, some researchers say, are the deadliest creatures in the world, killing over a million people a year through diseases like malaria, dengue, and West Nile.
There are a lot of people trying to learn more about how mosquitoes choose their prey, people funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, or, as Dr. Leslie Vosshall of New York city's Rockefeller University is, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
She says, mosquitoes really do find some people more attractive than others.
A lot of people doubted that this was the case, she says, despite the plethora of anecdotal evidence. Skeptics thought that everyone gets bitten about the same, but people whose immune systems react more strongly to the mosquito’s anticoagulant simply notice bites more. Vosshall designed her pilot study to weed out this variable. Volunteers exposed a patch of their forearm and a machine blew air across it, enticing mosquitoes into a trap. She found that mosquitoes found some people’s body odor four times as appetizing as others.
Speaking of appetizing...
We all know that people in France are different, and they sometimes eat some things we might
consider unusual occupants for the dinner plate -- like snails.
But it seems the French may now have found an entirely new use for snails -- skin treatments and facials.
According to this article in Reuters, which also provided the hilarious photo that accompanies this entry,
Louis-Marie Guedon says the mucus secreted by snails are full of collagen, glycolic acid, antibiotics and other compounds that regenerate skin cells and heal cuts.
Guedon, from Champagnolles in the west-central region of Charente-Maritime, believes it could presage a cosmetic revolution and has developed a secret technique to harvest the slime.
He is busy turning the innovation into France's first industrial-scale snail mucus extraction operation with a target to harvest 15 tons of it next year.
Not to be outdone, the Japanese are cutting out the middle man and simply putting snails on people's faces to let the benefits (and the slime) accrue naturally.
The process, which entails live snails crawling across a person's face, distributing their mucus along the way, is said to remove dead skin, soothe any inflammation and help the skin retain moisture.
"Snail slime can help recovery of skin cells on the face, so we expect the snail facial to help heal damaged skin," Yoko Minami, a manager at the salon chain's flagship store, told Japan Daily Press.
The $243 treatment, called "Celebrity Escargot Course," also features a massage, a mask and electrical pulse machines.
Snail mucus contains hyaluronic acid and proteoglycans, both of which are popular ingredients in cosmetics. The former, for example, is known to give tissue flexibility and promote healing. As a result, brands such as Missha, Dr. Jart+ and Labcconte have taken to developing creams such as "Snail Gel" containing extracts of the animal's secretions.
"This clearly is not very scientifically done," dermatologist Stephen Mandy of Miami Beach, Fla. told ABC News, pointing out that, given the variety of facets to the treatment, it would be impossible to tell which one is helping.
Furthermore, it's not clear how well snails' version of hyaluronic acid would affect human skin, Mandy said, explaining that even if it does work as a filler, it wouldn't make it through the outer layer of the skin without some kind of injection.
For this reason, Williams Stebbins, a dermatology professor at Vanderbilt University, expressed similar doubt.
"I'd be surprised if this has any lasting effect on skin health," he told ABC.
On another topic from the animal kingdom -- FRANKENFISH!
Don't you love that nickname? I do.
Science can't seem to make up its mind about every headline writers favorite invasive species, the northern snakehead (also a cool name if you ask me.)
The snakehead is a relentless and efficient predator that devours just about everything in its path — fish, frogs, crayfish, beetles and aquatic insects. And it does not meet death easily; it is able to survive under ice or live on land for days in damp conditions. It has been called Fishzilla.
“I would describe them as the freshwater fish equivalent of a tank,” said Ron P. Swegman, a fly-fishing expert and author whose writings about fishing in Central Park include an essay, “Bright Fish, Big City.”
“They are heavily armed,” he said, “strong, and can cover almost any territory, aquatic and — at least for short periods — on land.”
New York City anglers, and those elsewhere, had been warned to kill the fish immediately and not return it to the water.
"The threat of the snakehead, which is believed to spawn repeatedly during the year unlike other species that spawn just once, is that it is such a hardy newcomer that it could squeeze out longer-established and more desired fish," Zabarenko wrote.
Virginia fisheries biologist John Odenkirk said so far, the fish have not wreaked havoc with the Potomac River ecosystem.
Odenkirk dismissed the notion that they have no natural predators. Snakehead young, if left unguarded, are easy prey for ospreys and eagles, he said.
Maryland manages the snakehead differently than Virginia, which prohibits commercial sales to avoid creating a market for the fish. Maryland encourages sales, maintaining that eating snakehead gives other fish a chance.
John Rorapaugh, director of sustainability at ProFish, a Washington seafood wholesaler, said his company pays $4 to $5 a pound for snakeheads, compared to $.50 to $1 for catfish.
The snakehead population has risen since 2004. But so has the population of large-mouth bass, a prized regional sport fish that brings in $622 million a year to Virginia and accounts for more than 5,500 jobs in the state, according to the American Sportfishing Association.
But perhaps the snakehead's competition will come from its own ferocious nature as a sport fish.
Photo by The Free Lance-Star via Associated Press
Caleb Newton, who lives in Spotsylvania County, Va., holds the 17 pound, 6 ounce northern snakehead he caught Saturday in Aquia Creek in Virginia
Jack Vitek, world-record coordinator for the Florida-based IGFA, told the The Free Lance Star of Virginia Monday that the organization confirmed the 17 pound, 6 ounce northern snakehead as the largest ever caught with hook and line in the world.
Caleb Newton, a plumber and weekend fishing enthusiast, caught the snakehead, sometimes known as "Frankenfish," on June 1 during a fishing tournament.
Northern snakeheads are voracious predators and would not think twice about biting down on an errant hand or limb, so Newton had to exercise caution when handling the fish.
"They're creepy critters, but the danger is all in how close you put your hands to it," he told the Washington Times.
And, if you think the Frankenfish is scary, we present, in honor of Shark Week, what was found inside the stomach of the largest Mako shark ever caught.
THIS JUST IN!!!!!
Having dealt with "Frankenfish" and a monstrously large Mako shark's stomach, we stumbled across this item in the U.K. Guardian this morning that deserves your immediate attention if you have any plans to travel to Sweden and go swimming.
The alert came after a fisherman in the Oresund Sound last week retrieved a 21 centimetre pacu - a relative of the piranha that is most commonly found in the Amazon region.
You DO NOT want to meet this fish in Sweden without a pair of
sturdy swim trunks to protect the family jewels!
"Keep your swimwear on if you're bathing in the Sound these days - maybe there are more out there!" cautioned the National History Museum in neighbouring Denmark.
The freshwater fish, which can grow up to 90 centimetres and weigh up to 25 kilogrammes, has been nicknamed the "ball cutter" for its attacks on the male genitalia.
In areas where pacus proliferate, fishermen have reportedly bled to death after losing their testicles to the fish's crushing jaws.
Found in most rivers in the Amazon and Orinoco basins in South America, they have also been spotted in Papua New Guinea, where it is believed they have been introduced to boost fish stocks. Discoveries have also been reported in several US states; in 2006, officials at one Texas lake reportedly put a $100 bounty on the pacu caught there.
So next time you think "invasive species, what's the big deal?" consider those poor Swedish swimmers...
(Put's a whole new spin on that candy "Swedish Fish" does it not?)
OOPS (New as of Aug. 16):
So now it turns out the above warning was actually not meant to be serious.
A warning over the weekend for male swimmers off the coast of Denmark and Sweden to protect their private parts because of a testicle-munching fish appears to have been a joke that got out of hand.
Turns out this warning was a real fish story!
After a Danish fisherman caught a South American pacu among his eels and perch this month, a professor at the Copenhagen Museum of Natural History told men to be careful because the fish sometimes mistake male reproductive organs for tree nuts, one of their favorite foods.
"Anyone choosing to bathe in the Oresund these days had best keep their swimsuits well tied," Professor Peter Rask Moller said in a Saturday news release about the fish discovery in the strait separating Denmark and Sweden.
Wednesday, however, Moller said he was just joking and never meant for his warning to get so much publicity.
"We did say that we recommend men to keep their swimsuits tied up until we know if there are more pacus out there in our waters," Moller told CNN by e-mail. "Of course, this is half a joke since it is very unlikely that you would actually meet one here and that it would bite you. It's up to people themselves how careful they want to be. I'll keep my shorts on, though."
Thinking of spring, and these blooming callery pear trees on Beech Street, as the cold winter winds blow.
Trees are among the oldest life forms on this planet.
And whether for its spring time flowering, the initials carved in its bark, or its willingness to host your tree house, almost everyone has a favorite tree.
But did you know they are also helping to keep you alive?
This revelation came to me courtesy of Pottstown resident and arborist Alan Jensen-Sellers, who posted a link on Facebook to an article in The Atlantic magazine.
The Emerald Ash borer is about the size of a penny, but its impact
is huge.
It explored the link discovered between the mass reduction of the tree population by the invasive Emerald Ash Borer and an increase in cases of heart disease in areas where the insect has struck.
Here is the core of what was found:
When the U.S. Forest Service looked at mortality rates in counties affected by the emerald ash borer, they found increased mortality rates. Specifically, more people were dying of cardiovascular and lower respiratory tract illness -- the first and third most common causes of death in the U.S. As the infestation took over in each of these places, the connection to poor health strengthened.
This is a case of a benefit being proven by its absence, which I like to call the "Joni Mitchell Effect," Re: (Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've got till its gone...)
Certainly we all know that trees produce oxygen, which we need to live, and take in and store carbon dioxide, which is also a good thing.
They also act like giant cilia in the lungs of the world, filtering out air pollutants.
For example, the trees of Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC remove 63,500 pounds of ozone-forming pollutants each year, which has an annual value of $285,000.
This again from The Atlantic:
And since planting trees costs less than building pipes and expanding wastewater treatment plants, cities like New York and Portland, Ore. are undergoing projects to plant thousands of trees as part of what is now called "green infrastructure.
What's my point? you may ask
Not much more than to point out that while trees can be a pain, making us rake their leaves, falling on our house or car in strong winds, rooting through our water or sewer lines, they have their good sides too.
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