Meghan Barrett

Advisor: Professor Clinton; Reader: Dr. Cindy Briggs

Biology Honors

3 September 2015

Effects of an Emerald Ash Borer Invasion at Nations Road Preserve

Hypothesis: The loss of ash trees from the forest community will cause significant changes in the diversity and species of trees in the Nations Road Preserve.

Objectives:

- To sample areas of the forest to determine community composition and ash importance in terms of cover, density, and frequency

+ develop a baseline knowledge of the forest in terms of species diversity, species stability (increasing, decreasing, or stable population),

- Map, using GIS, the areas sampled and their species; map any areas with signs of ash borer infestation

- Use modeling software to show projected changes to the forest community if EAB invade and remove the ash trees from the preserve

Background Information:

The Emerald Ash Borer (Agrilus planipennis Farirmarie) is an invasive species (native to Asia) that is causing loss of biodiversity and environmental/economic destruction in the United States. The phloem feeding, wood-boring beetle was first noted in Detroit, Michigan in 2002 and likely arrived via international shipping of solid wood packing material, such as crating and pallets used in bulk shipments to the United States. By 2010, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin all showed signs of invasion (Kovacs et al. 2009). This rapid spread is especially concerning as 47 of the 48 lower states of America all contain the preferred host plant of the Emerald Ash Borer, Fraxinus spp. (USDA Plants 2010).

This means that many forest ecosystems throughout America may find their structure and function affected by the loss of this species from their habitats. Already, at least fifteen million ash trees in Michigan alone have been killed by the infestation. It is known that 44 species of arthropods depend solely on ash trees in America and are thus considered at high risk for potential extinction as more of these trees keep dying (Ghandi and Herms 2010). The expansive range of the Fraxinus spp. throughout America also means there are very few landscape barriers to impede the spread of the Emerald Ash Borer. The white ash tree, Fraxinus americana, is common to the North American Hardwood Forest region, and can be found in many regions around the Geneseo, NY area - such as the Nations Road Preserve.

The emerald ash borer relies on ash species (Fraxinus spp.) to complete its life cycle (Haack et al. 2002). The life cycle of the Emerald Ash Borer utilizes the Fraxinus spp. during the larval development stage, although adult Emerald Ash Borers do feed on the foliage of the species (this damage is considered negligible to the tree’s overall health). The Emerald Ash Borer is only able to utilize Fraxinus spp. and therefore is very host specific (Anulewicz et al. 2008). Adult Emerald Ash Borers feed on ash tree foliage between May through September; mating then occurs and females will lay sixty to ninety eggs in the bark of an ash tree. A week or two later, larvae hatch and begin to feed on the phloem tissues of the ash tree (Cappaert et al. 2005). This juvenile stage lasts for 300 days, after which the adults emerge. By destroying this connective tissue, the larvae effectively starve and suffocate the tree by not allowing for the translocation of nutrients or water, creating a disconnect between the leaves and the roots (McCullough et al. 2009). Most ash trees infested with the Emerald Ash borer die within two to four years (Herms 2004).

Controlling the spread of infestation is critical for mitigating damage to ecosystems, and early detection is the best way to control the spread. Unfortunately it is difficult to detect infestations in individuals trees as they are occurring, as the visible indications of infestation don’t occur until after the juvenile exits from under the bark. The external indicators (woodpecker holes, canopy dieback, bark fissures, epicormic branching and D-shaped exit holes at visible range) only begin to occur until after a rampant infestation is underway, and therefore it is likely more than one individual has been affected (Poland and McCullough 2006, McCullough et al. 2009).

The loss of ash trees will undoubtedly have significant impacts on American ecosystems. With many of these trees dying, forest cover will be reduced. This will allow increased light penetration, and increased soil temperatures. In some locations it could cause nutrient leaching, as less water is soaked up through the roots and nutrients are lost through groundwater. Dead ash trees are very brittle, and fall to the forest floor quickly; these dead trees cause further damage to nearby trees and increase canopy loss (Quine and Gardiner 2007). This creates large open areas and increases ‘edge effects’ - such as detrimental exposure to wind (causing even more canopy loss) or light.

The loss of ash tree populations will also affect industry and recreation in America as the removal of dead and dying trees can be costly. As described before, the machinery and manpower necessary to remove all these trees can also have a negative effect on the ecosystem. More dead, dry matter on forest floors in areas with humans also increases the potential for fire in these communities. Ash trees also have a wide variety of commercial uses; their eradication means that the logging industry will be placing more stress on other species of trees to make up for their losses in ash.

These are just some biological and anthro-centric effects, along with increased dead matter (which has potential to bury understory vegetation) and decreased biodiversity as all the Fraxinus spp. and the arthropods that depend on them for survival, are eradicated. As the Emerald Ash Borer begins to spread throughout New York, it would be interesting to speculate as to how its presence may affect a local ecosystem, in terms of forest community composition, at the study site of the Nations Road Preserve.

Basic Experimental Procedures:

- Plot-sampling method (.01 hectare diameter plots) – randomly selected points (40 plots)

+ take DBH of any overstory tree over 5” in dbh, and record by species

+ look at percent cover of invasive woody species

+ look for signs of EAB infestation and record height of exit holes and tree location

- A species accumulation curve will be done every ten plots

- Take GIS data – get GPS readings to map each plot sampled

- Analysis of Data

+ look at percent cover and dispersion of invasive woody species

+ look at dispersion of white ash in the forest (look at for both overstory and saplings)

+ look at importance values of ash and other overstory species

+ size class distribution graphs for ash and top five most important species in community

+ species abundance curves

+ frequency, density, and basal area comparisons for all overstory species

+ modeling software (FVS) to model potential changes to the forest with ash tree mortality at varying levels

Expected Needs:

- Small plastic flags for marking edges of the plot

- 2 tape measurers for transects

- DBH tape measurer

- GPS for GIS data (either from the Biology Department or acquire from a research grant)

- software for modeling projected changes to the forest

- access to the Preserve

- access to computers with GIS software

Timetable:

Sept – Oct 1: 25 Plots

Oct 2 – Nov 1: 15 Plots

Nov 2 – February 15: Finished analysis of baseline forest composition

February 16 – March 1: Finish analysis of projected forest after EAB invasion

March 15: Rough draft of all GREAT Day materials submitted to faculty advisor to look over

Citations:

Anulewicz, A.C., D.G. McCullough, D.L. Cappaert, and T.M. Poland (2008). Host range of the emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire) (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) in North America: results of multiple-choice field experiments. Environmental Entomology, 37:230-241.

Cappaert, D., D.G. McCullough, T.M. Poland, and N.W. Siegert (2005). Emerald ash borer in North America; a research and regulatory challenge. American Entomologist, 51:152-165.

"Forest Community Response to Emerald Ash Borer." Forest Community Response to Emerald Ash Borer. The Ohio State University, 1 Jan. 2008. Web. 29 Apr. 2015.

Ghandi, K.J. and D.A. Herms (2010). North American arthropods at risk due to widespread Fraxinus mortality caused by the alien emerald ash borer. Biological Invasions, 12:1839-1846.

Haack, R.A., E. Jendek, H. Liu, K.R. Marchant, T.R. Tetrice, T.M. Poland, and H. Ye (2002). The emerald ash borer: a new exotic pest in North America. Michigan Entomological Society Newsletter, 47:1-5.

Kovacs, K.F., R.G. Haight, D.G. McCullough, R.J. Mercader, N.W. Siegert, and A.M. Liebold (2009). Cost of potential emerald ash borer damage in U.S. communities, 2009-2019. Ecological Economics, 69:569-578.

McCullough, D.G., T.M. Poland, and D. Cappaert, D (2009). Emerald Ash Borer (Agrilus planipennis) attraction to ash trees stressed by girdling, herbicide or wounding. Canadian Journal of Forestry Research, 39:1331–1345.

Poland, T.M. and D.G. McCullough (2006). Emerald ash borer: invasion of the urban forest and the threat to North America’s ash resource. Journal of Forestry, 104:118–124.

Quine, C.P. and B.A. Gardiner (2007). Understanding how the interaction of wind and trees results in windthrow, stem breakage, and canopy gap formation. In: Johnson, E.A. and Miyanishi, K. (eds.), Plant disturbance ecology the process and the response. Academic Press, USA pp. 103-156.

USDA NRCS (2010). The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov) National Plant Data Center.