Forestcast

With global trade and travel, organisms are moved around easily and abruptly, causing biological invasions. What’s our best hope to combat these rapidly spreading pests? Sometimes, it’s to do the exact same thing, to start moving around organisms — on purpose — to attack unwanted pests.

This is called ‘biological control.’ It is one of the most cost-efficient and environmentally acceptable long-term approaches for managing invasive species. And, it’s been a crucial component to managing the damage caused by the most destructive forest insect in U.S. history — the emerald ash borer beetle.

Related Research:

• Emerald Ash Borer Biocontrol in Ash Saplings: The Potential for Early Stage Recovery of North American Ash Trees (2017)
• Progress and Challenges of Protecting North American Ash Trees from the Emerald Ash Borer Using Biological Control (2018)
• Progress in the Classical Biological Control of Agrilus Planipennis Fairmaire (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) in North America (2015)
• Buying Time: Preliminary Assessment of Biocontrol in the Recovery of Native Forest Vegetation in the Aftermath of the Invasive Emerald Ash Borer (2017)
• The Role of Biocontrol of Emerald Ash Borer in Protecting Ash Regeneration After Invasion (2017)
• EAB County Detections

Scientists:

• Leah Bauer, Research Entomologist, Northern Research Station, Lansing, Michigan (retired)
• Roy Von Driesche, Entomologist / Conservation Biologist, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts (retired)
• Jian Duan, Research Entomologist, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Newark, Delaware

Produced by the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station.

Want more information? Visit us at https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/nrs/products/multimedia/podcasts/forestcast-season-1-balance-and-barrier-episode-2-wasps-vs-emerald

Questions or ideas for the show? Connect with Jon at: [email protected]

The number one way you can stop an insect invasion or pathogen from spreading is by stopping it from ever starting. Who says geneticists and ecologists can’t act in the same way—taking action before a tree is ever in danger?

With ash, proactive and collaborative breeding is already taking place, and it could be a roadmap for the future of combating tree species restorations.

Related Research:

• Green Ash Trees That Survive Beetle Infestation Pass on Their Resistance Through Propagation and Planting (NRS)
• The Key to Rescuing Green Ash from Emerald Ash Borer is in the Genes (NRS)
• “Saving Green Ash” (2017)
• “Restoring Green Ash: Breeding for Resistance to the Emerald Ash Borer” (2020)
• “Convergent molecular evolution among ash species resistant to the emerald ash borer” (2020)
• Saving Oregon Ash (2022) [Oregon Dept. of Forestry]

Scientists:

• Jennifer Koch, Research Biologist, Northern Research Station, Delaware, Ohio
• Kathleen Knight, Research Ecologist, Northern Research Station, Delaware, Ohio
• Richard Sniezko, Center Geneticist, Dorena Genetic Resource Center, Cottage Grove, Oregon

Produced by the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station.

Want more information? Visit us at https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/nrs/products/multimedia/podcasts/forestcast-season-2-backcross-episode-5-will-ash-be-blueprint-tree

Questions or ideas for the show? Connect with Jon at: [email protected]

Dutch elm disease (DED) is one of the most commonly known and destructive tree diseases in the world. The disease was first observed in Ohio in 1930, and by 1976, only 34 million of the estimated 77 million elms present in U.S. urban locations remained.

Research on American elm from the 1970s to the present has focused in large part on the identification of American elm individuals that can withstand the DED pathogen. To increase American elm’s long-term recovery as a canopy tree, it is crucial to increase the genetic variation of tolerant elms available for planting in urban and rural settings.

Related Research:

• “New American Elms Restore Stately Trees” (1996)
• “Evaluation of 19 American Elm Clones for Tolerance to Dutch Elm Disease” (2005)
• “Proceedings of the American Elm Restoration Workshop” (2016)
• “Development of New Dutch Elm Disease-Tolerant Selections for Restoration of the American Elm in Urban and Forested Landscapes” (2017)

Scientists:

• Jennifer Koch, Research Biologist, Northern Research Station, Delaware, Ohio
• Kathleen Knight, Research Ecologist, Northern Research Station, Delaware, Ohio
• Denny Townsend, Research Geneticist (Retired), USDA ARS, ​​U.S. National Arboretum, Washington, D.C.
• Dale Lesser, Farmer, Lesser Farms and Orchard, Dexter, Michigan

Produced by the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station.

Want more information? Visit us at https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/nrs/products/multimedia/podcasts/forestcast-season-2-backcross-episode-4-return-elm-street

Questions or ideas for the show? Connect with Jon at: [email protected]

Any day now, periodical cicadas will emerge across 15 states stretching from Illinois to New York and northern Georgia.

Two scientists, one who’s tracked the aboveground movements of these cicadas, and another who’s unearthed the belowground impact of these insects, take you inside the many mysteries and forgotten elements of these evolutionary enigmas.

Related Research:

• Sharp boundary formation and invasion between spatially adjacent periodical cicada broods (2021)
• Periodical cicada emergence resource pulse tracks forest expansion in a tallgrass prairie landscape (2019)
• Competition and Stragglers as Mediators of Developmental Synchrony in Periodical Cicadas (2018)
• Avian predation pressure as a potential driver of periodical cicada cycle length (2013)
• Effects of periodical cicada emergences on abundance and synchrony of avian populations (2005)
• Emergence of Periodical Cicadas (Magicicada cassini) From a Kansas Riparian Forest: Densities, Biomass and Nitrogen Flux (2001)
• Feeding ecology and emergence production of annual cicadas (Homoptera: Cicadidae) in tallgrass prairie (2001)
• The legacy of Charles Marlatt and efforts to limit plant pest invasions (2016)
• The Periodical Cicada (1907)

Scientists:

• Sandy Liebhold, Research Entomologist, Northern Research Station, Morgantown, West Virginia
• Mac Callaham, Research Ecologist, Southern Research Station, Athens, Georgia

Hey listeners! We're looking for cicada recordings! To be a part of an upcoming episode of Forestcast, record cicadas chorusing around you. In the recording, tell us where you are and who you are. Just record the cicadas on your phone and send the recording to [email protected].

Produced by the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station.

Want more information? Visit us at https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/nrs/products/multimedia/podcasts/forestcast-special-episode-two-sided-story-periodical-cicadas

Questions or ideas for the show? Connect with Jon at: [email protected]

A biological invasion is an enormous increase in population of some kind of living organism. It happens when an organism — like an insect — arrives somewhere beyond its previous range, when it breaks out past its natural barrier, unbalancing the biological order. More than 450 non-native insects have invaded our forests and urban trees since European settlement. In this series, we'll explore four of these insects, and the scientists studying and combating these pests.

In 1957, a British ecologist, Charles S. Elton, gave three radio presentations entitled “Balance and Barrier.” Within a year, he had expanded these ideas into what was to become a bible for practitioners of a burgeoning new science: invasion biology. In a tribute to those broadcasts, this six-part series will explore biological invasions — and their repercussions — in the Midwest and the Northeast.

Related Research:

• “Ecology of Forest Insect Invasions” (2017)
• “A Highly Aggregated Geographical Distribution of Forest Pest Invasions in the USA” (2013)
• “Historical Accumulation of Nonindigenous Forest Pests in the Continental United States” (2011)
• “Economic Impacts of Non-Native Forest Insects in the Continental United States” (2011)
• “The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants” (1958)

Scientists:

• Therese Poland, Project Leader/Research Entomologist, Northern Research Station, Lansing, Michigan
• Sandy Liebhold, Research Entomologist, Northern Research Station, Morgantown, West Virginia
• Robert Haight, Research Forester, Northern Research Station, St. Paul, Minnesota

Produced by the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station.

Want more information? Visit us at https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/nrs/products/multimedia/podcasts/forestcast-season-1-balance-and-barrier-episode-1-slow-explosion

Questions or ideas for the show? Connect with Jon at: [email protected]