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
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
Sunday, August 19, 2007
By Scott Shalaway
 |
 |
| Charlie Neibergall, Associated Press It’s been a good year for monarch butterflies as they prepare for their long journey to Mexico. Click photo for larger image. |
|
It’s been a banner year for hummingbirds and butterflies on the ridge. They’re draining the nectar feeders twice a day.
I’ve written about hummingbirds several times, so suffice to say that the clouds of nectar sippers I described earlier in the summer have become thunderheads of hummingbirds. They’re draining the nectar feeders twice a day.
Butterfly numbers have shown a similar pattern this summer. Tiger swallowtails, fritillaries and skippers have decorated the yard since June. In July, pipevine swallowtail caterpillars emerged en masse. Over the course of four weeks, they consumed half the biomass of the volleyball-sized pipevine leaves. full story
