Tag Archives: Lyme Disease

The Acorn Story

By Claudine Sullivan, Walden Master Gardener Volunteer

Several acorns hanging in an oak tree wich has leaves that have started to turn brownOne of the most recognizable symbols of fall is a branch of oak leaves and a couple of acorns.  Oak trees (Quercus spp.) have been around for approximately 55 million years old, with the oldest North American specimen being 44 million years old.  Long before pumpkins and corn stalks came to symbolize harvest and bounty, people depended on the humble acorn and majestic oak tree for sustenance and shelter.  Today we think of oak trees in terms of shade, firewood, and sturdy furniture, but as acorns can be stored for long periods of time and the flour made from them is quite nutritious for thousands of years acorns were the main food staple for people in balanocultures.

A photo looking up at the top of a massive oak tree
Black oak

Oak trees are a dominant plant in many forest ecosystems and currently there are about 500 species of oaks growing in temperate and tropical climates throughout the world.  There are about 90 species of oak trees native to the United States including eleven here in New York.

All oak trees produce acorns, this is the fruit and contains a nutrient rich seed.  It can be hard to imagine that a single acorn can become a 200-year-old tree cable of producing millions of other acorns. Acorn production does not begin until an oak tree is about 20 years old, with peak production when the tree is between 50 to 80 years old.  After that acorn production tapers off, although some trees will produce acorns well into their second century and beyond.

A photo of the rounded-lobed leaves of a white oak tree.
White oak leaves

Oaks in North American are divided into two groups: White Oaks and Red (Black) Oaks.  Each group has distinct leaf shape and acorn production strategy.  White or annual oaks have rounded-lobed leaves, flower later in the spring than red oaks, and have sweet tasting acorns that mature in one season.  The acorns of the white oaks can start to germinate as soon as they hit the ground in the fall.

A photo of the pointed-lobed leaves of a norther red oak.
Northern red oak leaves

Red or biennial oaks have pointed-lobed leaves, flower earlier in the spring than white oaks, and have bitter tasting acorns that take two years to mature.  Because their acorns take two years to mature, it is possible to have two seasons of acorns on each twig.  The acorns of the red oaks need a period of cold stratification that lasts 6-8 weeks in order to germinate.

Oaks Native to New York State
White / Annual Oaks Red / Biennial Oaks
Bear Oak   Quercus ilicifolia Chestnut Oak   Quercus montana
Chinkapin Oak   Quercus muehlenbergii Black Oak   Quercus velutina
Dwarf Chinkapin Oak   Quercus prinoides Northern Red Oak   Quercus rubra
Post Oak   Quercus stellata Pin Oak   Quercus palustris
Swamp White Oak   Quercus bicolor Scarlet oak   Quercus coccin
White Oak   Quercus alba
Photo: Clump of long cascading catkins covered with tiny flowers
Pin oak catkins

Both white and red oaks are monoecious meaning they have separate male and female flowers found on the same plant. Flowering begins in early spring, just before the leaves start to emerge.  The male flowers are produced on long catkins and are the first to bloom.  After about two weeks, the inconspicuous female flowers will open.  Female flowers are sometimes mistaken for leaf buds and can be found on both upper branches and new twigs, just at the base of new leaves.  They can only truly be appreciated with a magnifying glass.

Photo: Tiny red flowers located on the stem at the base of a leaf.
Northern red oak female flowers

The male flowers shed their pollen and the wind carries it to the female flowers of neighboring trees.  If the male flowers were above the female, the tree would more likely self-pollinate, so to ensure cross-pollination female flowers are located high in the tree, above the male flowers.  Weather can affect acorn production.  A rainy, damp spring will suppress pollination as the pollen will be washed to the ground.  A cold snap can also kill the female flowers.  Once fertilization occurs, a dry spell or other stressors can cause the tree to abort the acorns to conserve the trees resources.

Acorns covering the groundWhen all environmental factors work together, oak trees can produce an overabundance of acorns in what scientists call a “mast year.”  The term mast comes from Old English word meaning “fat” or “food” and can be traced back to the same word origin that gave us “meat”.  Perhaps that’s why the insides of nuts is called “the meat”.  In a mast year, one mature oak tree can produce 10,000 acorns.  Not every year is a mast year and not all trees have them in the same year.  In fact, the exact cause of a “mast year” is still not completely understood.  Scientists hypothesize that factors including weather and evolutionary adaptation play a part in this natural phenomenon.

Photo: Two acorns on the ground, one is slightly cracked and has begun to sprout.
Germinating acorn

When it comes to acorn production scientist have observed a two to five year production cycle that includes a mast crop year, a few average years, and a poor year.  Why have oaks (and other nut trees) developed this interesting quirk?  One hypothesis is that it is a survival strategy.  Oak trees depend on small mammals such as chipmunks and squirrels, and birds such as blue jays and woodpeckers for seed dispersal.  When there is an overabundance of acorns produced not all of them will be eaten, ensuring that some of them will be able to germinate and grow into trees.

Gray squirrel eating something in its hands
Gray squirrel

The acorn production cycle also has huge effects on the forest food web.  Just under 100 species depend on the acorn as a primary source of food including birds, black bears, chipmunks, deer, mice, and squirrels.  When the forest floor is full of acorns, the species that depend on the acorns for food have an easier winter.  This results in an increase in the animal population the following year.  Mast years use a lot of the tree’s resources, so they are often followed by a few years of lean or average acorn production.  In years when there are fewer acorns, fewer animals survive, keeping the population in balance.

Blacklegged tick crawling on a piece of cloth
Blacklegged tick

An interesting study conducted in southeastern New York shows that mast years not only effect the animal population that eat acorns, but it also effects tick populations that feed on the acorn eaters. After a mast year, populations of chipmunks, squirrels, and white-footed mice increase.  These small mammals are key to the life cycle of the blacklegged or deer tick (Ixodes scapularis), the only vector for Lyme disease in the northeastern United States.

A diagram of the lifecycle of a black-legged tick: Eggs hatch in the spring. In the summer the larvae feed on small animals such as birds and mice. The following spring nymphs feed on larger animals such as deer, fox, squirrels, and humans. Risk of human infection greatest in late spring and summer. In the fall adults feed on large animals such as deer, fox and humans. The adults lay eggs the following spring.
Lifecycle of the black-legged tick

When tick eggs hatch in spring, the emerging larvae are not infected with Lyme disease.  Their first host is usually a small mammal.  If their first host is a carrier of Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, the ticks become infected.  After feeding, the larval ticks drop-off their hosts and molt into nymphs.  The following spring the nymphs, which now may carry Lyme disease, search for new hosts, and this time they are more likely to chose a large animal such as a deer or a human.  As a result it has been observed that two years after an acorn mast year, Lyme disease cases see an uptick.

So next time you step on an acorn or hear one go THUNK! on your car or shed roof, remember that it is much more that just a fall decoration.

Photo: a single acorn lying on the ground near some moss

April is Citizen Science Month!

What is citizen science? 

Scientists are limited in the amount of data they can collect by both time and money.  With help from members of the general public, known as citizen scientists, researchers are able to crowd source data collection collecting more data from more places helping them find answers to real-world questions.

So if you want to do something fun and educational that contributes to the advancement of scientific knowledge, consider becoming a citizen scientist.

Citizen Science Projects


Monarch Butterfly (Orang and Black) - Jouney NorthThe Journey North

This project focuses on migration and seasonal changes.   People all over the United States, Canada, and Mexico, report sightings of birds, monarchs, frogs, and other organism.   Watch as reported sightings are mapped in real-time as waves of migrations that move across the continent.


inaturalist logoi-Naturalist

iNaturalist lets you photograph, identify, and document what’s around you.  Every observation can contribute to biodiversity science, from the rarest butterfly to the most common backyard weed.  By sharing your observations with scientists, you will help build our understanding of the natural world.

Never Home Alone

In studying life, scientists have overlooked many regions. Some regions have not been studied because they are so remote. Others because they are so diverse that it is hard to know where to even begin. Then there is the great indoors, which we believe has been understudied in part because it is so immediate. This project aims to document the species that live indoors with humans.


The Cornell Lab of Ornithology - Logo with Bird in MiddleThe Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world contribute bird observations to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology each year, gathering data on a scale once unimaginable. Scientists use these data to reveal how birds are affected by habitat loss, pollution, disease, climate, and other environmental changes. Your participation will help trace bird migration, nesting success, and changes in bird numbers through time.

Celebrate Urban Birds

Celebrate Urban Birds is a citizen science project focused on better understanding the value of green spaces for birds. This project connects people of all ages and backgrounds to birds and the natural world through the arts and fun neighborhood activities.

e-bird

The goal of this project is to gather this information on bird sightings, archive it, and freely share it to power new data-driven approaches to science, conservation and education.  e-Bird also develops tools that make birding more rewarding.  It provides the most current and useful information to the birding community from photos and audio recordings, to seeing real-time maps of species distribution and alerts that let you know when species have been seen.

NestWatch

NestWatch is a nationwide monitoring program designed to track status and trends in the reproductive biology of birds, including when nesting occurs, number of eggs laid, how many eggs hatch, and how many hatchlings survive.  Their database is intended to be used to study the current condition of breeding bird populations and how they may be changing over time as a result of climate change, habitat degradation and loss, expansion of urban areas, and the introduction of non-native plants and animals.


Logo - The Tick App - Bulls Eye with a the outline of a tick in the miidle suurounded by the words The Tick AppThe Tick App

The Tick App allows people living in high-risk areas for Lyme disease, like Orange County New York, to participate in a tick behavioral study.   Participants complete daily logs and report ticks.  The app provides information on how to remove ticks, prevent tick bites, and general information about ticks.   When enough people are involved, it can also provides information about blacklegged and deer tick activity in our area.


Monarch Caterpilar (Yellow, white, black stripped) on a green leaf - Monarch Larva Monitoring ProjectMonarch Larva Monitoring Program

This citizen science project’s mission is to better understand the distribution and abundance of breeding monarchs and to use that knowledge to inform and inspire monarch conservation.  People from across the United States and Canada participate in this monarch research.  Their observations aid in conserving monarchs and their threatened migratory phenomenon, and advance the understanding of butterfly ecology in general.


Logo - Monarch Watch.org Education, Conservation, ResearchMonarch Watch

Monarch Watch strives to provide the public with information about the biology of monarch butterflies, their spectacular migration, and how to use monarchs to further science education in primary and secondary schools. They engage in research on monarch migration biology and monarch population dynamics to better understand how to conserve the monarch migration.

Monarch Calendar Project

In the spring and fall volunteers collect observations of adult monarchs.  This information is used to  assemble quantitative data on monarch numbers at critical times during the breeding season.

Tagging Monarchs

Each fall Monarch Watch distributes more than a quarter of a million tags to thousands of volunteers across North America who tag monarchs as they migrate through their area. These citizen scientists capture monarchs throughout the migration season, record the tag code, tag date, gender of the butterfly, and geographic location then tag and release them. At the end of the tagging season, these data are submitted to Monarch Watch and added to their database to be used in research.


Logo - The Lost Ladybug ProjectThe Lost Ladybug Project

In the past twenty years, native ladybugs that were once very common have become extremely rare.  During this same time, ladybugs from other parts of the world have greatly increased in both numbers and range. This is happening very quickly and no one knows how, why, or what impact it will have on ladybug diversity.  Citizen scientists involved in this project help scientists answer these questions by photographing ladybugs and submitting the photos along with information about when and where the ladybugs were found.


Logo - Vegetable Varieties for GardenersVegetable Varieties for Gardeners

A project of Cornell University’s Garden Based Learning, this web forum provides an avenue for gardeners to share knowledge.  Gardeners report what vegetable varieties perform well – and not so well – in their gardens.  Other gardeners can view ratings and read the reviews to decide which might work well for them.  Researchers  use the information gain new insight into the performance of vegetable varieties under a wide range of conditions and practices. The information gathered is also used to make a  Selected List of Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners in New York State.


Logo - The outline of New York State under a picture of a moth, a beetle, a moth and a fly with the words Empire State Native Pollinator SurveyEmpire State Native Pollinator Survey

Native pollinators play an essential role in the pollination of flowering plants, including native plants and wildflowers, garden plants, as well as cultivated crops. Some native pollinator species have suffered population declines over the last few decades.   Participants  in this study submit photographs and/or specimens to help  determine the conservation status of a wide array of native insect pollinators in non-agricultural habitats.


iMapInvasivesiMapInvasives

iMapInvasives is an on-line, GIS-based data management system used to assist citizen scientists and natural resource professionals working to protect our natural resources from the threat of invasive species.  Citizen scientists are provided with resources to help them identify invasive species. Their invasive species findings are aggregated with data from a wide variety of sources contributing to early detection of invasive species as well as analysis of management strategies.


A curated beetle collection with pinned specimens above tagsNotes from Nature

Natural history museums across the world share a common goal – to conserve and make available knowledge about natural and cultural heritage. The Notes from Nature project gives you the opportunity to make a scientifically important contribution towards that goal by transcribing museum records. Every transcription that is completed brings us closer to filling gaps in our knowledge of global biodiversity and natural heritage.


Logo - citizenscience.orgCitizen Science Database

This is an official government website designed to accelerate the use of crowdsourcing and citizen science across the U.S. government.  It includes a searchable database of  a government-wide listing of citizen science and crowdsourcing projects designed to improve cross-agency collaboration, reveal opportunities for new high-impact projects, and make it easier for volunteers to find out about projects they can join.


Become a Citizen Scientist today!

Black-legged Ticks and Lyme Disease

May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month!

The black-legged tick, also known as the deer tick, is a very common in Orange County and is the only species of tick found in our area  known to transmit Lyme Disease.

In the spring months you are most likely to find black-legged tick nymphs. These poppy seed sized immature ticks can easily go undetected if the proper precautions are not taken.  This results in a  the highest number of  Lyme disease cases being confirmed in June and July.

Bar graph showing confirmed cases of Lyme Disease by month. January - April cases are below 10,00. May climbs to almost 20,000 with a peak in June and July with over 50,000 cases. August fall back to about 20,000 and Sept. - Dec. continues to fall starting a little about 10,000 in Sept. and falling to below 5,000 in Dec.
Confirmed Cases of Lyme Disease by Month of Disease Onset in the United States 2001-2017

In the fall adult deer ticks are more abundant.  Even though these  blood suckers are about twice as likely to carry Lyme disease then the nymphs, they are much larger and therefore  more easily detected and less likely to feed long enough to transmit Lyme disease.

The presence of ticks should not prevent you from enjoying the out-of-doors.  By avoiding tick habitat whenever possible and doing a daily tick check, you can minimize your risk of being bitten and contracting a tick borne pathogen .  Ticks usually hang out on shrubs and tall grasses, no higher than knee height.  Black-legged ticks prefer cool humid place like the woods, but can also survive in tall grasses and even on lawns.

Even if a tick gets on you, it usually doesn’t latch on immediately.  It first searches for a nice warm place such as behind your ears, in your armpits, or even in your belly button.  Conducting a daily tick check can help prevent tick bites.  Make sure you do daily tick checks on children as they are not likely to check themselves, which contributes to higher incident rates of Lyme disease among children than  adults.

Bar graph comparing confirmed Lyme diesease cases by age and sex. The highest incidence is for males age 5-9.

To safely remove a tick, use a point set of tweezers to grasp the tick as close to the skin a possible. Do NOT grab the back end of the tick.
How to safely remove a tick

If you find an embedded tick, it should be removed promptly.  To properly remove a tick, use a very pointy pair of tweezers to grasp the tick as close to the skin as possible.  Avoid squeezing the abdomen (large back part of the tick) as that can cause the contents of the tick be pushed into your body.  Although it is commonly thought that if not removed properly the head of the tick will remain lodged in your skin, this is false.  A tick uses its barbed mouth parts to puncture your skin and latch on.  The head is never embedded.  If you leave the mouth parts behind when removing a tick, it is similar to having a splinter and does not increase your risk of contracting a tick borne pathogen.

Don't Get Ticked NY LogoTo learn more about how to prevent tick bites check out the Don’t Get Ticked New York website.

Black-legged ticks can also transmit several other diseases including Anaplasmosis, Babesiosis, Powassan Virus, Borreilia miyamoti and Ehrichiosis.  For information about the symptoms and treatments of these and other tick borne diseases visit the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s website or the Orange County Department of Public Health’s website.

For free tick identification contact the Orange County Department of Public Health.

You can also bring specimens to Cornell Cooperative Extension of Orange County, 18 Seward Avenue, Suite 300, Middletown, NY 10940. (There is a $7.00 fee for up to 10 ticks.)

Neither Cornell Cooperative Extension or the Orange County Department of Health test ticks for disease.  For more information on where you can get ticks tested for disease visit the Tick Encounter Resource Center. (Tests cost about $50.)