REBECCA HALE
Reverb Editor
This past Christmas, Fredonia professor Dr. Jonathan Titus and his wife, Priscilla Titus, were walking their dogs through the campus woodlot when they stumbled upon something unusual.
Priscilla noticed an unusual amount of needles on the ground, and after a closer look, she found some tiny, fuzzy white specks all over the branches of a hemlock tree. As both Priscilla and Jonathan are ecologists, they recognized the specks to be Adelges tsugae, commonly known as the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid, an aphid native to Eastern Asia.
This is the first known occurrence of the Wooly Adelgid being spotted in Chautauqua County. The aphid is very small and feeds on the sap of hemlock trees, which causes needle loss and prevents budding in spring. A tree infested with these aphids will only live four to ten years, whereas a healthy hemlock can live hundreds of years.
The Wooly Adelgid was responsible for much of the decimation of hemlocks in the forests of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Jonathan said that here, hemlocks provide homes for birds, as well as shading the creeks, keeping them cool enough for aquatic life.
“Because hemlocks are a key component that drives the ecosystem, everything else is affected,” Priscilla said.
“Hemlock is part of our culture here in Western New York,” Jonathan added.
Though initially the aphids were only found on a few trees, subsequent follow-up visits to the woodlot have revealed that they have been spreading, although they may have been breeding more slowly due to the cold temperatures. The snow also makes the Adelgids difficult to spot.
“It’s potentially controllable, but it’s of concern because there’s enough of it that it could spread if it’s not treated,” Priscilla said.
Jonathan speculated that they were probably transported into Chautauqua County by birds. The nearest current infestations of the Adelgids are in Erie and Monroe counties.
In the past, a few different methods have been utilized in attempts to remove the Wooly Adelgids from ecosystems in which they were unwelcome. Some predator beetles were introduced in different areas in hopes that they would extinguish all the aphids. Still, introduction of a new species can further upset the balance of an ecosystem.
The introduction of these beetles in other ecosystems has not yet produced negative effects, though Priscilla said ecological change can take decades.
“You can’t say in year three that there are no detrimental effects, because you’re only in year three,” she said.
Although it is Jonathan’s preferred method, these beetles are also expensive — some cost $3 per beetle — and not readily available. Cornell University is presently working on breeding more of these beetles.
Another method would be removing heavily-populated branches and burning them; however, if done incorrectly, this tactic could further weaken hemlock trees, making them more susceptible to infestation.
Currently, the campus is looking into the use of pesticides to control the situation. These pesticides would be applied by trained professionals and injected into the trunks of the hemlock trees. Still, the effects on tree health and other organisms which also feed on the hemlock is not entirely known with the use of these pesticides.
“There’s a risk,” Jonathan admits, “[but] if we thought it was hopeless, and there were too many affected trees, we wouldn’t spray. Because this is the first and only known infestation in Chautauqua County right now, it’s worth doing because there are hundreds of thousands of hemlocks.”
Priscilla explained one of the potential benefits of using pesticides.
“Hemlocks that have the Wooly Adelgid on them that are also suffering from other native insect infestations will do worse; it’s like a person with the flu who has worms at the same time,” she said.
Priscilla considers the campus woodlot to be a one-of-a-kind ecosystem, one that is beloved to her and many other campus and community members. The spread of this aphid could be harmful not only to the campus woodlot, but to surrounding areas, and in turn, the reputation of the campus.
“This campus woods is unique to Fredonia. There is no other patch of woods in this area that is as pristine as this one,” Priscilla said.
“The college lodge is [also] the nicest hemlock forest across the entire region,” Jonathan added.
Jonathan is currently working with the campus to combat these invasive aphids, and requests student assistance in conducting research and collecting data in regards to the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid. He hopes to be applying the pesticides as early as this spring.
“We want to make sure that the administration takes this seriously, so that we don’t become the epicenter of the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid infestation of New York,” he said.