Treesearch

For more than 150 years, the exotic defoliator spongy moth, Lymantria dispar L. (Lepidoptera: Erebidae, formerly known as the "gypsy moth"), has impacted forests and been a nuisance to residents in the eastern United States. Management of this non-native, invasive species dates back to the late 1800s, and more recent eradication and suppression techniques have evolved from intensive, tedious management actions to integrated pest management programs that are coordinated by state and federal agencies. Five previous management programs dating from 1923 to 1999 have laid the framework for the...

The National Slow the Spread (STS) Program represents the largest strategy to limit the impacts of the exotic spongy moth, Lymantria dispar L. (Lepidoptera: Erebidae, formerly known as the "gypsy moth"), in the United States. The STS Foundation, a non-profit organization, state and federal agencies, and university partners work collaboratively in three committees (operations, regulatory, and technical) to reduce the rate of spread of L. dispar. Since 2000, state agencies and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service annually plan and implement trap and treatment activities,...

For 20 years, the National Slow the Spread (STS) Program has successfully slowed the rate of spread of the non-native spongy moth, Lymantria dispar L. (Lepidoptera: Erebidae, formerly known as the "gypsy moth"), to a mean rate of 2.6 km/yr, an 87 percent reduction from its historical rate of spread and surpassing the program’s goal of a 60 percent reduction. Because the program has been so successful and the location of the population front has remained in the same general area, state partners have remained fairly consistent during the course of the program. Much of the program focuses on...

The spread of spongy moth, Lymantria dispar L. (Lepidoptera: Erebidae, formerly known as the "gypsy moth"), in North America arguably represents the best-studied biological invasion in the world, due in part to extensive monitoring data from the USDA National Slow the Spread (STS) Program. In this paper, we focus on recent research on spread, with particular emphasis on findings since the publication of Tobin and Blackburn (2007). Recent advances in understanding L. dispar spread generally fall into three categories: (1) the role of mating success and Allee effects, (2) the effects of...

The National Slow the Spread (STS) Program for spongy moth, Lymantria dispar L. (Lepidoptera: Erebidae, formerly known as the "gypsy moth"), is a science-based program. In this paper, we provide a brief description of research funded by the STS Program with the goal of optimization and improvement of L. dispar management tactics. Recent research developments include evaluation of new pheromone formulations for their abilities to disrupt mating in L. dispar populations and their persistent effects in the environment; development of methods for ground application of pheromone and for...

Development in natural areas is a leading threat to biodiversity. Global conservationists have called for the expansion of protected areas to preserve wildlands that are free from buildings, and in the U.S., the 'America the Beautiful' initiative aims to protect 30% of land and water areas by 2030 (known as the '30x30' target). Here, we determined opportunities and limitations for conservation in the conterminous U.S. by assessing the extent of buildings in wildland vegetation. We focused specifically on National Forest lands, as these contain numerous private inholdings where development...

Texas contains the southwestern range edge of Macrochelys temminckii (Alligator Snapping Turtle), but there is relatively little published information on this species within the state. To document its range and assess temporal changes in its distribution and demography, we sampled 23 sites from 1999 to 2001. We then resurveyed 22 of these sites and sampled 29 additional sites in 2020–2021. Detection outcomes were consistent between 18 of the 22 resurveyed sites. Sex ratios and body-size distributions were similar across surveys. Catch per unit effort (CPUE) was lower in areas with trotlines...

Droughts are major climate events that have strong negative effects on water resources for both natural and human systems worldwide. In the Caribbean, droughts have affected agricultural production and local economies and have diminished the quality of life for the general population (Álvarez-Berríos et al. 2018). Better monitoring, forecasting, and planning efforts could certainly lead to improved ways of coping with the impacts of droughts in this region. Strong negative effects of droughts in Puerto Rico (PR) and the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) stress the need to build resilience at...

Fire-induced turbulence and the feedback into the fire, following ambient changes, differ for forested (subcanopy) and grassland environments. Here, we synthesize observations from multiple experimental surface fires: two sub-canopy backing fires, one sub-canopy heading fire, and a grassland heading fire. We identify and compare the most essential coherent structures and processes of each case from the turbulent momentum fluxes and turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) budget terms. In the sub-canopy burns, turbulent eddies are strongest near the canopy top: high streamwise turbulent flux...

DNA metabarcoding of pollen is a useful tool for studying bee foraging ecology. However, several questions about this method remain unresolved, including the extent to which sequence read data is quantitative, which type of sequence count removal threshold to use and how that choice affects our ability to detect rare flower visits, and how sequence artefacts may confound conclusions about bee foraging behavior. To address these questions, we isolated pollen from five plant species and created treatments comprised of pollen from each species alone and combinations of pollen from multiple...