Adelgids don’t like the cold, either
When Hemlock woolly adelgids – aphid-like invasive insects that devastate hemlocks – were found in Cornell Plantations’ Cascadilla Gorge and Beebe Lake natural areas, Cornell Natural Areas staff members quickly trained more than 120 volunteers to scour Cornell and adjacent privately owned lands in the Ithaca area.
After volunteers spent over 250 hours surveying nine sites covering 568 acres, adelgids were found in only one additional Cornell Plantations site – on hemlocks in the Edwards Lake Cliffs Natural Area north of Lansing, near the shore of Cayuga Lake. That was encouraging, said Natural Areas director Todd Bittner.
“Now it is clear that we’re going to have a lot of hemlock woolly adelgids right around the lakes, but we have not yet found them far from the lakes due to the adelgids’ winter cold intolerance,” Bittner said. The lakes create warmer winter microclimates near their shores, which reduce the bitter cold that normally kills adelgids, he added.
Cornell Natural Areas staff and entomologists are also experimenting with different treatment methods, including the first release of a heavily researched biocontrol predatory beetle from Idaho.