Bumble bee research featured by the Columbus Dispatch

Scott and Mike's research has been featured by the Columbus Dispatch! Check out the link below:

LINK: Researchers use radio tags to unlock bumblebee's secrets

Dummy caterpillar experiment results!

I checked on our dummy caterpillars over the weekend and saw no action so I decided it would be best to leave them for a week to give ample time for some predation. I probably should have checked the weather before making that decision...several inches of snow later.....I collected what was left of the caterpillars this afternoon. Two sets (six caterpillars total) were on plants that died and though I tried, I could not find the caterpillars! Of the two other sets I did find, there were two caterpillars that had interesting marks. First I referenced what some common predation marks might look like:

Howe et al., 2009

Curtis et al., 2013

Then I looked at our caterpillars under the scope:

Mark found on the dorsal aspect (top) of the caterpillar.

Mark found on the lateral aspect (side) of the caterpillar.

What do you guys think? Both of these caterpillars had been secured to branches of a pine tree. I'm guessing this experiment would be a lot more interesting if it was done in the spring!

How should hops be prepped for winter?

Here and the ALE Lab we just carried out some final plant maintenance to get the hop yard prepped for winter.

We had left some vegetation in the field after harvesting back in August-September. We figured since we have first year plants this would be beneficial as the plants need their leaves to photosynthesize (create energy) to build up their roots systems.

Before we cut the plants down the field looked like this:

We cut the bines down to about 1-2 inches above ground level.

...I didn't take us too long to get the hop yard all cleared out!

Due to the presence of downy mildew we trucked all of the vegetation out of the field, and sent it to be composted.

Many growers will cover their hop plants with mulch or compost after cutting them back.  This is supposed to help protect the crowns from freezes. We decided to go mulch free to find out how that method would work for Ohio hop growers.

Andrea's field work has begun!

Hello everybody!  My last post was way back in the fall when I joined the ALE lab as a new Masters student.  Things have been going great and I now have a project in the works.  I am interested in how landscape composition and management practices affect the natural enemies found in vegetable crops, specifically sweet corn and summer squash.  I am also sampling for long-legged flies (a type of predatory fly that is rather ubiquitous) to see if they can be a bioindicator group of the natural enemies in agroecosystems.


A long-legged fly (Charles Ray, Auburn University; Bugwood.org):

And now that summer is here, field work is officially under way!  I spent last week deploying traps at 16 field sites throughout northeastern Ohio.  The three types of traps I am using are pitfall traps (a cup of water in the ground with soapy water to keep the critters from crawling back out):

.... white pan traps (flies are particularly attracted to white):

... and yellow sticky traps (flying insects are attracted to the yellow card and get stuck in the sticky goo on the surface of the card):

 These three traps are clustered together at four plots within the crop:

This week I am going around to my sites again to gather the traps up and see what types of insects I caught.  Hopefully I got some interesting stuff; I shall keep everyone posted!

Hops yard progress: Rhizome planting in Wooster

Step 1: Mark the plots clearly. Rhizomes of different varieties look similar, and the last thing you want to do is mix them up. A good start is knowing exactly which varieties will go where before you even take the rhizomes out of the cooler.

Step 2: If you use landscape fabric (for weed control), burn holes with a torch.

Step 3: Grab your (well organized and labeled) rhizomes!

Step 4: Start planting! We followed the methods demonstrated in this video:

  

Step 5: Watering: Give them a generous amount of water. We gave each rhizome 1 liter, and also considered the fact that it was going to rain later in the day. Keep an eye on them; you should not let the soil dry out, but too much water can be detrimental for rhizomes you are trying to establish.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to the graduate students (Jake, Liz, and Doug) who volunteered their time to help us get the hop yard planted!

Now it's time for the waiting and watering game...many more updates to come!

Trackin' Bumbles.

Scott, Steve, and Mary have been hard at work testing the RFID tags they'll be using in the field to track bumble bees in the field this summer.

Bee with tag glued to thorax

Steve and Scott test the sensor

Keep on movin' little bee!

Who's pollinating the soybean?

What's Shawn doing tromping through that soybean field?

Collecting bee bowls!

We are sampling for bees in soybean fields in Wooster and Apple Creek, OH for a graduate student at Iowa State University.

Soybean plants can actually self pollinate to produce beans, but evidence has shown that the presence of bees can increase seed production.

Effects of the landscape on services provided by insects

The ALE lab is interested in how the surrounding landscape can affect populations of insects as well as services they provide such as biological control and pollination. An increase in the complexity of the landscape is often associated with an increase in the abundance of natural enemies (insects that prey on crop pests). Additionally, the abundance and diversity of bees visiting flowers has been observed to decrease as the amount of  semi-natural habitats decrease.

A simple landscape is often composed of more conventional crops such as corn and soybean:

A complex landscape tends to have more forest and vegetable crops:

To answer questions about the effect of the landscape on insects, we pick sites, which often consist of an agricultural field, or another area, where data was collected. We then drive around at a 1.5 or 3 km radius (1.5 km for biological control, and 3 km for pollination by bees) and document what is planted or what type of ground cover is present in every field within that circle.

 

Using a program called ArcGIS we create maps that can be used to compare with the data we collected at our sites with the composition of the landscape surrounding that site. We are currently in the data collection, and mapping phase for most of our projects. The ALE lab is looking forward to the data analysis phase so some of our questions can be answered!