Pine-Killing Invasive Wasp Discovered In Upstate New York

[hatrack]

ITHACA, N.Y. — "The discovery of a pernicious wasp in New York, the first time it's been found in the wild in this country, has scientists worried about a scourge that has devastated pine forests in other parts of the world.

E. Richard Hoebeke, a Cornell University entomologist, collected the Old World woodwasp on Sept. 7 in Fulton County northwest of Albany as he sifted for bark beetles caught in screening traps. He identified the adult female bug on Feb. 19.

The invasive insect species, Sirex noctilio Fabricius, has ruined up to 80 percent of pine trees in areas of New Zealand, Australia, South America and South Africa, Hoebeke said. If established in the United States, it would threaten pines coast-to-coast, particularly in the pine-dense Southeast. One target would be loblolly pines in Georgia.

The woodwasp, which is native to Europe, Asia and northern Africa, kills pines and sometimes other conifers by introducing a toxic mucus and spores of a toxic fungus when the female lays her eggs through the bark and into the sapwood. The only other woodwasp in the United States was found in 2002 in Indiana but that was in a warehouse, not the wild, Hoebeke said. "Whenever you find an insect in a trap, it probably is established," he said."

EDIT

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=7738

[mike_c]

1. this is one of the risks of "free trade" agreements...

...that don't allow us to strictly regulate the importation of foreign wood or wood products. The keynote speaker at the North American Forest Insects Work Conference predicted this sort of invasion several years ago. Sudden oak death is likely another such biological invader whose invasion was facilitated by "free trade."

[hatrack]

2. Along with chestnut blight, Dutch elm disease and gypsy moths

To name but a few . . .

[amandabeech]

3. Don't forget Emerald Ash Borer and Sudden Oak Death.

I'm beginning to wonder what trees will still be around 20 years from now.

[Qanisqineq]

4. and the Asian longhorned beetle

plus numerous cases of introduced fish (carp coming to mind right away)