Forest Service office seeks answer to plants, insects run rampant

Vince D'Amico (left), head of the USDA Forest Service’s Northeastern Research Center office on campus, and Douglas Tallamy, chairperson of entomology and applied ecology, inspect a European hornbeam sapling that is a part of a study of invasive alien species in White Clay Creek State Park.

1:37 p.m., June 14, 2004--Vince D’Amico was a research scientist with the USDA Forest Service’s Hamden, Conn., office two years ago when his wife, Carolyn, was offered a job as a pathologist’s assistant three states away at Christiana Care Health System in Delaware.

D’Amico approached the University of Delaware’s Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology and asked if there would be room for a Forest Service Northeastern Research Center office on campus. There was.

D’Amico’s idea grew into a win-win move for the University, the Forest Service and the D’Amicos. The Forest Service opened a Delaware research office in Newark.

“The willingness of the Forest Service to help us to pursue our careers has led to a very profitable collaboration with UD,’’ D’Amico said, crediting the Northeastern Research Station’s upper management for the decision to switch his duty station to Delaware and to support two graduate students at UD.

The Forest Service office opened in 2002 in Townsend Hall. Now Marion Zuefle, a graduate student hired by the Forest Service, is studying harmful exotic plants such as multiflora rose and phragmities in a project run by Douglas W. Tallamy, chairperson of entomology and wildlife ecology. Another graduate student, Deanna Borchardt, will begin her work on insect control next fall.

The Forest Service research stations work in forests as well as in ordinary landscapes like backyards and parks. D’Amico works to control harmful exotic insects in Delaware landscapes and forests. He also studies the insects in their places of origin—such as the Asian longhorned beetles, introduced to New York harbors on shipping pallets from China, known for destroying maple and willow trees.

D'Amico and Marion Zuefle, a grad student in entomology and wildlife ecology, examine a sample of multiflora rose weed, an invasive species that blankets the area on the edge of the woods behind them.

When he pulls out his electronic organizer to check his schedule, it lists talks in Helsinki and at White Clay Creek State Park and field work in Dover and in Slovakia.

One Forest Service research site is a short distance from the University on the edge of White Clay Creek State Park. Multiflora rose, a thick, thorny rambling weed gone wild, covers parts of the forest floor. Tallamy and Forest Service researchers are combining their knowledge of insects and invasive plants to study how multiflora rose and other plants accidentally imported from other places affect the food chain.

Tallamy, D’Amico and Zuefle are working on the next step in Tallamy’s groundbreaking research that found native insects opt for leaves of native plants over exotic invasive plants.

“What Marion is doing and what Doug had the idea for is the concept that native insects may not eat these foreign plants—that these plants that aren’t native might do well because the native insects don’t eat them,’’ D’Amico said. “The deeper question that Doug is interested in is whether or not this has an impact on birds and mammals that eat insects.

“Let’s say an area is taken over by multiflora rose, and the native caterpillars have nothing to eat but multiflora rose and they can’t eat that,’’ D’Amico said. “What happens to their numbers? They go down. And these caterpillars form a very big part of the diet of songbirds. So, you see how there’s another level. There are fewer of these insects that birds rely on to feed their young. The food chain gets disrupted by invasives coming into the landscape.”

D’Amico and Clifford B.O. Keil, associate professor of entomology and wildlife ecology, are researching ways to test bio-pesticides—pesticides that employ bacteria to kill specific insects without harming other insects, wildlife, plants or humans.

Forestry factoid: Almost one-third of Delaware is forested—383,000 acres, including treed byways, state parks and larger forests, such as Alapocas Woods and Redden State Forest. Seven percent of Delaware’s forest is owned by the state. Most—93 percent—is owned by more than 17,300 private corporations and individuals.

Their focus is on developing faster ways to test bio-pesticides. Some labs still use the century-old bioassay method—feeding pesticide to a group of insects and seeing how many die. D’Amico and Keil are using electrical current to test the effects of the toxins on insect pests more quickly.

Tallamy said having a Forest Service office on campus has given researchers additional depth, as well as a heads up on grant possibilities and professional conferences.

“We’re a small department, and we’d love to be bigger, but there are no additional faculty lines available, so a collaboration like the one we have with Vince gives us many of the benefits of a regular faculty member with few of the costs,’’ he said. “Vince is a wonderful resource. It’s an excellent deal for the University because we get a lot without giving much.”

Article by Kathy Canavan
Photo by Duane Perry

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