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Thoughts on Ailanthus altissima: biological and chemical eradication
methods
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ABSTRACT: This presentation will show that Ailanthus altissima is easy to kill by a volunteer safe chemical
method. At the same time a naturally occurring bioeradication system has been observed that is
effectively killing Ailanthus altissima. This serves as a model for finding bioeradication systems for other
invasive non-native organisms and ending the scientifically unsound practice of introducing more
non-native organisms to control current problems only to become problems themselves.
Foundation Concept: Bioeradication
Classical biocontrol – the introduction of non-native organisms in the attempt to reduce the effects of other introduced non-native organisms on ecosystems. At the same time there are unforeseen negative effects which cannot be predicted in the local and extra-local ecosystems through genetic and/or behavioral changes in the non-native biocontrol, the target organism and native organisms.There is an average of 2.44 introduced organisms for every species on which control is being attempted. I think this number is underestimated and that the real number is at least 5 introduced organisms for every biocontrol target, probably higher.
Bioeradication – The extinction of a non-native (invasive) species from an ecosystem using native organisms. The goal is the regeneration of the ecosystem by eliminating the non-native problem from the ecosystem using native organisms. This eliminates the potential problems associated with the addition of non-native organisms as potential controls.
Bioeradicant/Bioeradicant system – Any native organism or organism system in any time frame from seconds to centuries that partially or fully inhibits a non-native organism and helps drive it to extinction.
Direct bioeradication – The use of a native organism or native organism system as a bioeradicant for a specific organism by increasing its population through introduction of more of the bioeradicant.
Indirect bioeradication – Providing the native natural resources such as food sources, breeding sites or shelter needed for a bioeradicant or bioeradicant system to develop at a specific location for a specific organism. This may be nectar sources, sheltering plants, mutualistic fungi, water source or … for any life stage.
Bioremediation – the use of native organisms to displace and eradicate non-native organisms while replacing them as they are eliminated from an ecosystem in order to restore that ecosystem to its original state.An example is adding Solidago canadensis to a field with Ailanthus altissima to attract adult Atteva aurea.
Known Bioeradicants for Ailanthus altissima:
Atteva aureaAculops ailanthii
Fusarium lateritiumFusarium oxysporum
Verticillium albo-atrum
Bioeradicant system for Ailanthus altissima:
Atteva aureaAculops ailanthii
Fusarium oxysporumSolidago canadensisRudbeckia laciniata
Ailanthus altissima
Physiology
The left fork of this trees was poisoned about 2 weeks before this photograph. This slide shows the basic vascular structure of Ailanthus is vertical with little horizontal structure due to its fast growth.
Male trees – single clean peduncles
Female tree – elaborate branching peduncles and seeds.
peduncles
peduncles with seeds
Our Heroes at work:Atteva aurea and Aculops ailanthii
larvae
eggs
pupa shell
Multigenerational web
Aculops ailanthii, an eriophyoid mite.
Aculops ailanthi on an A. altissima leaf.
Diseased trees
Stand of A. altissima in July 2011 in Urbana, MD. This is three years after my research was completed. Originally this stand was thriving.
The apparent key to Ailanthus eradication by natural means is to plant native flowers nearby with compact inflorescences that bloom in succession from late spring to hard freeze as nectar sources for adult
Atteva aurea.In the spring this may be forest trees and
shrubs such as the American Chestnut and Mountain Laurel. After that time the
Asteraceae and other families are good nectar sources.
Castanea dentata
Rudbeckia laciniata
Verbesina alternifolia
Monarda fistulosa
Leucanthemum sp.
Solidago sp.
Other plants I am looking at:Lonicera japonica – insects and diseaseLonicera maacki – insects and disease
Lonicera morrowii – insects and diseaseMicrostegium vimineum - disease
Rosa multiflora – mites and diseaseInsect I am looking at:
Halyomorpha halys – birds and disease
Chemical Control:Drill and Fill
This method is best during non-dormancy.
Materials:heavy duty cordless drill
spare battery packs for drill3/8” drill bit
markermeasuring tape
spray bottle filled with 50.2% Roundup™ (purple cap)
gogglesnitrile gloves
Drill a 3/8” hole 1” to 2” deep every 2” of girth at comfortable working height.
A drill bit will get stuck if the holes are more than about 2” due to the stickiness of the sap.
3/8” drill holes @ every 2” apart
Then spray 50.2% glyphosate (purple cap RoundUp™) into the holes.
Within a week the leaves will begin wilting and yellowing.
Within 2 weeks the leaves will begin falling.
Day 0. I did this “as a volunteer” to test the robustness of the method.
Two weeks after injection.
End of summer.
Day 0, five trunks with DBH from 8” to 44”.
About 2 weeks after injection.
October in the same year.
October 2015, 3 years later.
Fluid flow is along a strip @ 2” wide from the injection to the apical meristems in the
roots and branches.
The four sure signs of tree death are:1.) no green layer under the bark
when scraped. 2.) white fungi growing around the
outside of the tree. 3.) loose/peeling bark.
4.) Euwallacea validus* leaves tubes of white frass on the outside of the tree.
*E. validus is the result of the tree being weakened by disease or poison, not the agent of disease spread.
It is essential that all dead trees around trails, roads and buildings be
cut down within six months of dying.
Several trees poisoned in January and June 2012 fell in late October with
Hurricane Sandy. The break point was the row of drill holes.
Due to its exceptional growth rate Ailanthus does not develop the internal structures denser trees
develop which give them strength.
Once it dies, the tree may fall and decompose swiftly.
This method is most efficient when the tree is not in dormancy. During
dormancy when the amount of brush is diminished and biting insects are not
present, drill around the base of the tree with a long drill bit, treat all
obvious roots and monitor for clones over next 2 growing seasons.
Method advantages:
1.) It does not use sharp objects. This reduces the potential for injury, especially among volunteers.
2.) All the materials can be found relatively inexpensively in most
hardware stores.
3.) Feedback is fast and can be watched as it develops. The results
begin to show in less than two weeks with complete defoliation of trees
often in less than three weeks.
4.) Less spillage of herbicide and hence less collateral damage.
5.) This method appears to be robust and may work on other woody invasive plants such as Lonicera
morrowii, Lonicera maackii, Broussonetia papyrifera, Eleagnus
umbellate.
Walk more,Tinker less.
Appendix of Bioeradication theory
Popu
latio
n o
r co
ncen
trati
on
Non-native specialist biocontrol
Non-native invasiveChemical defenses of non-native invasive population
time
This diagram demonstrates what happens when a non-native specialist biocontrol is reintroduced to its non-native host.
European parsnip, Pastinaca sativa, apparently did this.
Popu
latio
n
Non-native biocontrol
Non-native invasive
Native congeners of non-native invader
time
A simplified diagram of the probable scenario of what happens when a non-native biocontrol is introduced.
Popu
latio
n
Non-native biocontrols
Pioneer non-native invasive
Native congeners of non-native invasive
time
Secondary non-native invasives
This is a more complex version of what is expected when a non-native plant is introduced followed by its non-native
biocontrol. The native system collapses allowing secondary non-natives to enter.
Native organisms
Popu
latio
n
Native bioeradicant
Non-native invasive
Native congeners of non-native invader
time
The expected population curves for native bioeradicant use. There is a baseline population for
native organisms which changes as the native biocontrols adapt to the non-native invasive.
Applying Biotic Resistance in reverse, an introduced specialist biocontrol is apt to prefer defenseless closely related natives over the exotic it was brought in to control because the exotic already has defenses against the biocontrol. Therefore, it is safer to use a conservative non-exotic bioeradication approach than risk an ecosystem with an outside specialist as a potential disastrous biocontrol.
Known non-native invasive species where biocontrol has gone rogue:
Rhinocyllus conicus: jumped from the non-native Canada thistle, Cirsium arvense, it was introduced to control to native thistles in the Cirsium
genus (Louda,1997). That both the native and non-native are the same genus should have served as a warning that the introduced R. conicus was apt to jump to a native in the same genus instead of exclusively
feeding on its intended host.
Cactoblastis cactorum: imported to the Caribbean to control prickly pear cacti, Opuntia ficus-indica; arrived in the U.S. naturally or in cargo
imported from the Caribbean (Johnson and Stiling 1998)
Successful bioeradicant:Euhrychiopsis lecontei is a weevil that has been investigated as a
potential biocontrol agent for Eurasian water milfoil. It is found in the eastern and central United States and western Canada.
Draft: Our Roman/Christian Heritage: The Demon in Science
The demon in Science is our Roman/Christian heritage. It has hindered science, misled scientists, caused enormous amounts of bad data and corrupted the meaning of science. This heritage has changed basic observation into engineering and scientists into engineers. It has caused problem solving where no problem existed while giving answers which are superfluous and misleading to these solved non-existent problems. It makes us impatient and results oriented where patience and understanding are called for. We attempt to understand phenomena in days or weeks instead of years, decades and possibly lifetimes. We have changed from observers to tinkerers. We design experiments before fully observing and understanding the system about which we are experimenting. Then we call this data valid and use it as the basis of future experimentation. Our Christian heritage constantly shouts at us that we live in an inherently flawed world that the godly need to bring to godliness. At the same time it puts us at the center of creation by being the last and ultimate of God’s creations. The “heresy” of Galileo was that he took humans out the center of the universe and made them a piece of creation, not the ultimate part of it. The shock that humanity is not the ultimate center and purpose of creation still reverberates in science, engineering, religion, politics, economics and other sectors of human existence.
Our Roman heritage is the need to engineer the world in the same way the Romans engineered their world. The Romans were great engineers as is obvious by their monuments, buildings, roads and other infrastructure to control their world and the people in it. There was little they did not tamper with. They even tried to control their gods!
Roman Christianity is mechanistic, full of formulaic prayers and rituals, i.e. religious engineering. This is easily seen in the written constitutions (rules) of the various monastic sects such as the Rule of St. Benedict. It is even seen in the prayers which attempt to engineer “salvation” and hence God. In the extreme, sects of Roman based Christianity hope to engineer their way into physical prosperity and eternity by extreme ritualistic/legalistic codes of behavior.
Our philosophers talk about what we are and how we define ourselves as humans. Seldom do they define us as a small part of the natural world. Either they ignore the natural world in their definition of humanity or they teach us that the natural world revolves around us, created for our benefit. This makes us egotistical narcissists who have a hard time leaving an engineered environment for one that is unchanged from its natural condition and in which we are a small, often flawed, component.
The intersection of these psychological forces is that in Western Science we are always intent on engineering an answer to an often non-existent problem rather than understanding what we are engineering. The issue is amply evidenced in the barrage of projects and products coming from science which attempt to make the world or at least our part of it “better”. Whether it is medicine, ecology, food or agriculture we are intent on using “science” to change the world in some way rather than understand it. It has taken a heavy toll on our world and everything in it.
Reductionism is one of the worst aspects of our need to engineer the world to save it. We take an almost infinite set of variables, reducing it down to one or two we think we can understand. For some reason we act as if our limited minds can understand systems nearly infinitely complex through a couple obvious and easily tested factors. Even our bodies, which are the most basic level of science understanding, are too complex for us to fully understand. Now try applying reductionist science where there are many more bodies and conditions. It is not possible to get even a minimal understanding of the complexity without several lifetimes of observation. This is what we are taught is science.
We have fled from the basics of Science, the understanding of our world. Instead, we have become engineers. A couple years ago when I was hiking near Port Clinton I talked with a forester. He was marking striped maple trees for cutting to “correct” the balance of trees in the forest. More recently as I was looking at the Penn State Biology program, instead of seeing basic Classical Biology, I saw mostly biotech and bioengineering. This is not science! Classical Biology is Science in that it is based on observation to understand natural phenomena, not alter and destroy them.
In medicine, we are always at war with diseases, many of which are not diseases but lifestyle or environmental issues. The cure for many of these diseases is obvious if we take the time to look and think. Type II Diabetes for most of us is about lifestyle changes – getting off our fat asses and walking, pushing away from the dinner table, eating whole foods and avoiding highly processed foods. It is not about a new miracle food or ingredient, device, routine or medication. I am at a loss of anything that is simpler and needs less research. The same is true for many mental illnesses. If we take the time to understand them we may see them as a natural, healthy and necessary part of our world. If we take this approach we would stop medicating people into incoherency. Many cancers, lung diseases and heart diseases have causes that are lifestyle or environmental?. Stop consuming tobacco, clean up the air, stop dumping waste into our water systems, use environmentally sound organic methods of agriculture, turn off the television, get off Facebook and take a walk. How much “science” does this require?
Food science is a huge and easy target. It appears to be all about “improving” nature. I have a hard time understanding how a food which is healthy and flavorful in itself is improved by adding chemicals to it. Aspartame, sucralose and other artificial sweeteners are a disaster for diabetics, the morbidly obese and most other people. Margarine and butanedione are better than natural oils and fats? The whole vitamin/supplement market is beginning to collapse now that it is being realized that an apple or peach is a better supplement than the latest GNC product. Another chemical to improve how a food tastes or another additive to improve its nutrition is necessary? How does another sweetener, emulsifier or other unnatural additive add anything to a plate of fresh greens with vinegar or a dish with herbs ten minutes from a garden?
Agriculture is another easy target. Bioengineering is straight from the depths of our narcissism. Pesticides are developed knowing that in a few years biology will triumph over them. Crops are bioengineered and fail because ecology was at best a minor consideration while destroying native birds, insects, reptiles and other organisms. We should not be looking at methods and products that give Monsanto or DuPont quarterly dividends. Instead we need to be pursuing methods which help increase productivity by improving the health of the local ecosystems, not destroying them. We can put birdhouses and bat houses around fields to control unwanted insects, plant native wildflowers to bring in pollinators, plant trees in our pastures and croplands to attract hawks and owls for the control small of rodents, encourage coyotes and gray foxes to rid our fields of larger rodents. Imagine the almost limitless possibilities of easily intuitive practices that exist which are more than sustainable because they rebuild the ecosystems we have destroyed. These strategies which are based on the patient observation of where we live are much better than intrusive processes which fundamentally alter and destroy our ecosystems. In ecology we constantly add new organisms to an ecosystem to “correct” problems caused by organisms added earlier. Biocontrol has a failure rate of at least 80 percent with unknown ecological consequences for the organisms we can track. Then there are the organisms we released which we cannot track once they are loosed in the ecology because they disappear from our sight. Will these invisible organisms become visible again after a latency period with disastrous consequences as many of the present problem organisms have? Why do we call this a success?
Fish and Game Commissions are wonderful at changing conditions to try to enhance a system for one organism while forgetting about the effects on other organisms in that system. Make an area into a deer or grouse habitat to enhance their presence while not taking into account what this may do to the targeted species, let alone non-targeted species. The damage caused by creating deer habitat is catastrophic to the native vegetation. This in turn causes the rest of the ecosystem to collapse. This is then called wildlife conservation even though there is a severe loss of native species which use the previously unaltered habitats? A non-native fish is introduced into a stream or a non-native “game” bird into an ecosystem just for the sake of “sport” and tradition. (Anyone care for trout stuffed pheasant?) Introduce plants like Russian olive which almost no native wildlife uses for the intended purpose of food and cover. Chinese lespedeza is planted as a food for game birds which then starve to death with crops full due to the indigestibility of the seed coat. Sawtooth oaks were introduced for the amount of organics they produce but support virtually no wildlife because they are not a natural part of a local plant, let alone wildlife, community. The Pennsylvania Game Commission sees logging as an integral part of wildlife conservation. All I see after several years is a biological desert where “best practices” means the destruction of hundreds of acres of healthy woodland every year. Meanwhile the native organisms and normal balances are destroyed with the extinction of the habitats we are supposed to be protecting.
These are only a few of the easy branches of what is commonly called “Science” where failure to do Science is obvious. For me, the study of biocontrol in ecology is a series of disasters which have already happened, continue to happen and will happen in the future because we are blindly narcissistic about what we can do while forgetting our history. We see almost insurmountable problems which need solving without taking the time to believe already established Science theory and think. Most importantly we do not take the time to walk and observe. A few years ago the Brown Marmorated Stinkbug was a huge problem where we live. This fall I have killed perhaps a dozen as opposed to two years ago when I killed thousands. Our garden is pesticide free. We have two freezers full of produce because we took the time to understand the ecology and work with it. As far as medicine is concerned, I am both a type 2 diabetic and a type 2 bipolar. I trusted my instincts on the diabetes and have been proven correct. I did the same with mental illness.
As Scientists we fail in the same way politicians fail and our society fails because our collective memory of where we have been, the lessons it taught and our history are forgotten. In my field, ecology, getting back to the basics will inform our future and prevent cascading catastrophic mistakes which cannot be remediated by well-intentioned future actions. This is true in almost all aspects of Science.
To summarize, where the definition and practice of Science has gone wrong is that as Scientists we are primarily observers not problem solvers. “Problem solving” can only come from patient extensive observation before experimentation. Experimentation is a secondary activity, not primary, as it is the application of observation to answer a question or questions developed from observation. Science is not engineering.
