To “Native” or not to “Native”?
Your backyard is the setting for a great ecological debate, and you may engage in this debate, knowingly or not, every spring.
New paper out today: Exotic trees can serve both pest management and conservation goals
Does it have to be one or the other? Conservation or pest management? People or birds? I don’t think so, and a new paper from our lab in PeerJ supports this perspective.
Pink caterpillars make oaks less than pretty, but probably won’t kill them
Pink-striped oakworms are chomping on oak trees in Raleigh right now and leaving piles of frass (poop) in their wake. Spot them on your trees by looking for branches with all of their leaves chewed off.
As spiders leave the kitchen, pests keep cooking
A spider in the family Anyphaenidae has made its home on a twig infested with scale insects. Photo: Emily Meineke, Harvard University I think by now most people accept that we can’t hope [...]
Frank Lab Brings the Buzz to Bugfest
Johnny Randall, April Hamblin, and Elsa Youngsteadt at the 2015 Bugfest pollinators booth. Photo: Mary Frasier Hordes of insects descended upon downtown Raleigh last weekend, and, paradoxically, drew scores of human admirers. Could [...]
Banker plant diversity and biocontrol–new paper
Aphidius colemani parasitoid with aphid mummy. Photo: David Cappaert, Michigan State University, Bugwood.org Our new paper just published in Insects takes a look at whether using a variety of banker plant species enhances biocontrol [...]
Rare sight, common occurrence: Parasitoid wasp emerges from a scale insect
This is a guest post by PhD student Emily Meineke Coccophagus lycimnia freshly emerged from a gloomy scale. Photo: Emily Meineke If I’ve learned anything during my graduate career, it’s how to count scale [...]
IPM Symposium in Western NC – biocontrol, bees, and bugs
This is a fantastic symposium that has grown each year. It provides high-level information on IPM from national experts in biological control, pest ID, scouting and monitoring, disease management, pesticide use, and other topics. See [...]
New paper: Everything you wanted to know about parasitoids and aphids in greenhouse biocontrol
Aphidius colemani parasitizing an aphid. Photo: AG Dale The parasitoid wasp, Aphidius colemani, injects eggs into aphids so their larvae can develop inside. After a week or two an adult wasp emerges dramatically [...]
Hoverflies – Bee mimics provide pollination and biocontrol services
Hoverfly on Chrysogonum virginianum. Photo: SD Frank You can often see hoverflies zipping in and out of flowers in your garden. They approach a flowering shrub or group of flowering perennials and hover [...]