Invasive Species

Article and stories about invasive species in our state and other places.

Invasive “jumping” worms are here to stay – Vox

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Invasive “jumping” worms are here to stay – Vox

Variously known as jumping worms, snake worms, Alabama jumpers, and Jersey wrigglers, common Amynthas species are a super-powered version of the more familiar, squishy languidness of the garden-variety European earthworms (whose genus name, Lumbricus, itself sounds plodding). And their rapid spread into new areas has led to a surge of concern about these worms.

This vigorous lifestyle can quickly lead to full-blown infestations — and decimated topsoil. Perhaps it’s no wonder jumping worms recently have been invading the internet, too.

‘Highly aggressive’ algae found in Skaneateles Lake; could affect fishing, boating – newyorkupstate.com

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‘Highly aggressive’ algae found in Skaneateles Lake; could affect fishing, boating – newyorkupstate.com

Syracuse, N.Y. – A potentially problematic invasive algae has been found in Skaneateles Lake.

Known by the cheery name of starry stonewort, the algae could cause problems for the lake, an angler’s haven and the unfiltered source of drinking water for Syracuse and suburbs.

“It’s like many aquatic invasives in that it can take over and push out natural vegetation,” said David Carr, project manager for the starry stonewort collaborative in the Finger Lakes. “It can ruin fish habitat, and if it gets thick enough you can’t pull a boat through.”

When Life Gave Pennsylvania Spotted Lanternflies, Its Bees Made Spotted Lanternfly Honey – Gastro Obscura

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When Life Gave Pennsylvania Spotted Lanternflies, Its Bees Made Spotted Lanternfly Honey – Gastro Obscura

Don Shump, owner of Philadelphia Bee Co., has tended hives around the city for more than a decade, harvesting and selling neighborhood-specific varieties, donning bee beards at educational workshops, and extracting colonies of honeybees, wasps, and hornets from places they don’t belong. One day in fall 2019—right around the time the first adult spotted lanternfly populations exploded in Philadelphia—he entered the honey house, where a coworker was processing the harvest, and was hit with an unfamiliar aroma.

“It smelled like maple bacon,” Shump says. “I didn't know what these girls had gotten into, but it was something different.”

The harvest looked different, too: thick in texture with a deep reddish-brown color. Late summer and fall, when asters, goldenrod, and Japanese knotweed are in bloom, is the season for dark honey. But Shump had never seen anything like this, and beekeepers around Southeast Pennsylvania were seeing the same thing—an unusually dark harvest with a surprisingly smoky, robust flavor.

This is wild. Spotted lanternflies are giving honey a delicious smoked taste in Southeast Pennsylvania. 

NPR

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Pennsylvania Turns To Man’s Best Friend To Sniff Out Spotted Lanternfly Infestation : NPR

Spotted lanternflies are easy enough to spot, with ruby red streaks beneath black-and-white wings that blend like an abstract expressionist painting.

But six years after the first sightings of them, Pennsylvanians have been told to squash them on sight. They exact a huge toll on agriculture. The insects feed off 70 plant species, including fruit trees and grapevines, and they could cost Pennsylvania $324 million per year in lost crops and 2,800 agricultural jobs if left unchecked.

Squashing the adults won't solve the problem, however. Their eggs are odorless to humans and hard to find, tucked into wheel wells, tree trunks, pots and crates.

Lowe’s may have sold ash trees infested with invasive beetles in Maine this summer

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Lowe’s may have sold ash trees infested with invasive beetles in Maine this summer

In an unusual chain of events this spring, during which multiple failsafes were missed, ash trees potentially infested with emerald ash borers made their way from Maryland to Maine. They were sold at Lowe’s stores throughout the state. Now the state and the company are working to track those trees down.

Eighty trees were shipped to eight Lowe’s stores in Maine — all the chain’s stores in the state except the Presque Isle location — from a nursery in Connecticut. The Connecticut nursery had obtained the trees from a nursery in Maryland. Under federal and state quarantine invasive insect regulations, those trees never should have left Maryland or Connecticut, according to Maine agricultural officials.

Will insecticides targeting EAB harm woodpeckers?

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Will insecticides targeting EAB harm woodpeckers?

This is unlikely. Woodpeckers feed on live, mature EAB larvae, mostly in late fall, winter and early spring. Many of these mature larvae overwinter in the nonliving, outer bark where they will not be exposed to systemic insecticides. Imidacloprid, dinotefuran, and emamectin benzoate are much more toxic to insects than to birds that have been tested, and insecticide concentrations that have been measured in treated trees are far below the levels known to be toxic to birds. An EAB larva that has been killed by insecticide will desiccate quickly and decompose. There is little evidence that woodpeckers will feed on larval cadavers. Furthermore, living larvae that are suitable prey for woodpeckers will not have been exposed to a lethal dose of insecticide, and these products do not bio-accumulate in animals in the way that fat-soluble insecticides such as DDT do. In Michigan and Ohio, where EAB has been established for several years, many ash trees have been treated with systemic insecticides. There have been no reported cases of woodpecker poisoning caused by insecticides applied for control of EAB.

Increase in Woodpecker Populations Linked to Feasting on Emerald Ash Borer

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Increase in Woodpecker Populations Linked to Feasting on Emerald Ash Borer

The scourge of forests, the emerald ash borer, or EAB, is usually described with words like “destructive” and “pest.” A recent study based on data collected by citizen scientists suggests that one more adjective might apply, at least from a bird’s perspective: “delicious.”

In a study published this week in the journal Biological Invasions, U.S. Forest Service entomologist Andrew Liebhold and Cornell University scientist Walter Koenig and others document how an EAB invasion fueled a population boom for four species of birds in the Detroit area.