We took our first step toward having individual pages for 50 Pennsylvania tree species by the end of the year. Although we are not ready to have our grand unvailing of the website, we thought you might enjoy taking a peak. The first featured tree, as we work on threatened species, is the White Ash.
We hope you enjoy the page – let us know what you think! Email Trees of PA
As superheroes go, the tiny insect that Ellen Lake holds in her outstretched hand seems preposterous.For starters, it’s no bigger than a speck of dirt.
In magnification, with its bizarre long snout, the insect – a weevil known as R. latipes – looks almost comical, like something Dr. Seuss would have created.
Here’s what it’s up against: a barbed vine aptly named mile-a-minute. It can grow 20 feet in a summer. It engulfs landscapes, blanketing fields and shrubs, climbing trees, snuffing out plant life. Ultimately, the related and complex web of bugs, birds and other species fades as well.
Yet despite what look like long odds in the battle of weevil vs. weed, the little guy appears to be winning. read more
Forest-munching gypsy moth caterpillars rebounded in Pennsylvania this summer with a surprising vengeance, catching entomologists, government officials and landowners off-guard. Now, officials are worried they won’t have enough money or resources to help counties battle what is expected to be an even bigger infestation next year.
Early estimates indicate the pests, which had been in decline for several years, bounced back to defoliate a million acres in Pennsylvania. Lehigh County was relatively untouched but Monroe County, with its abundance of oaks — a gypsy moth favorite — was among the hardest-hit areas in the state and the nation. full story
With the opening of the first deer hunting seasons just weeks away, news of white-tailed deer dying in two southwestern Pennsylvania counties has raised concern among both the hunting public and Game Commission biologists. Since early August, more than 50 deer have died in Greene and Washington counties.
Post-mortem studies are underway at Penn State University and the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study at the University of Georgia. Dr. Walter Cottrell, Game Commission wildlife veterinarian, says, “While we must wait for test results to confirm just what caused these deer to die, at this time, we suspect that the deer died of epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD), based on the field signs that we are seeing.” read more
Science Daily — Researchers have developed a breed of American chestnut that is resistant to the fungal blight that decimated its population in the early 1900s.
But the return of this “king of trees,” so-called for its picturesque form and towering height of more than 100 feet, remains hampered by a slew of obstacles, said a Purdue University researcher.
“We are on the verge of overcoming chestnut blight, but there is a whole new set of obstacles to get past yet,” said Douglass Jacobs, an associate professor of forestry and natural resources who is helping develop the blight-resistant chestnut.
To reintroduce the American chestnut, he said, researchers must get past several policy limitations, gather new data, educate the public about the species and address new threats posed by exotic pests. He details these and other challenges in a paper published in July’s issue of the journal Biological Conservation. full story
OTTO — Chelcy Ford looked up into the early afternoon sunshine and pointed to the naked, brown branches of the hemlock trees surrounding her. The bare-limbed evergreens are a familiar sight here in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, where nearly all of the hemlocks are dying after being infested by the woolly adelgid.
Unlike many other scientists trying to figure out how to save the trees, Ford and a small group of researchers at the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory here are letting them die. read more
CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Butler county – In a hedgerow behind an elementary school, state entomologist Sven-Erik Spichiger works a screwdriver into the trunk of a dying ash tree, peels away a foot-long strip of bark and reveals something oddly beautiful yet ultimately horrific in the wood beneath: a network of S-shaped galleries, representing the years-long progress of innumerable gnawing larvae.
Trunks like this one are the nurseries of the emerald ash borer beetle, an accidental import from Asia that threatens the very existence of North America’s five varieties of ash and may, experts fear, already be inhabiting other parts of Pennsylvania, including the Lehigh Valley. full story
Entomological Notes (Penn State University Dept. of Entomology):
The gypsy moth, was accidentally introduced into Massachusetts in l869. By 1902 this pest was widespread in the New England states, eastern New York, and regions of New Jersey. The gypsy moth was first detected in Luzerne and Lackawanna Counties in northeastern Pennsylvania in l932. Pennsylvania’s infestation progressed south and westward following the mountain ridges. During the late 1970s and early l980s the leading edge of the infestation advanced into Centre, Blair, Huntingdon and Clearfield Counties. read more
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) – Ash trees are being turned into park benches, baby furniture and baseball bats for Little Leaguers as cities around the Midwest try to get rid of millions of trees killed by a paper clip-size beetle.
The emerald ash borer has killed or prompted state officials to cut down about 25 million infested trees in Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania since it first was discovered in the United States five years ago. And it’s on the move, with federal agriculture officials predicting it could spread to the east-central United States within the next two decades.
“We wanted to get value out of them before we lost them,” said Steve Gruner, director of the Sandusky County Park District in Ohio where ash trees were used to renovate a historic barn.
Workers in Monroe, Mich., built park benches, picnic tables and sign posts and ash floors and panelling are being installed in a library in Ann Arbor. read more
The following is from the PA DCNR Bureau of Forestry:
What is the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid?
Adelges tsugae, the hemlock woolly adelgid, is a fluid-feeding insect that feeds on hemlock trees throughout eastern North America, including Pennsylvania. The egg sacs of these insects look like the tips of cotton swabs clinging to the undersides of hemlock branches.
Hemlock woolly adelgid was introduced from Asia into the Pacific Northwest in 1924. It was probably introduced into the northeastern US in the 1950’s, and it was first discovered in Pennsylvania in 1967. This insect has been damaging hemlock ever since, and it is spreading. To date, 47 counties in the eastern two-thirds of PA have been infested with this insect. read more
