Volume V, no. 1, Spring 1998Table of Contents
Deep Woods ATBI -
Dave Horn
Deep Woods ATBIDeep Woods Community owns about 300 acres, some old fields but mostly mature forest, in Hocking County near Ash Cave State Park. Topography and past land use have resulted in a remarkable variety of ecological communities from riparian corridor through hemlock-beech ravines to xeric oak-hickory forest. The owners have initiated an "All-taxon Biological Inventory" (ATBI) with joint support from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), Division of Wildlife and the Ohio Biological Survey (OBS). The intent is to develop a baseline of species present and to monitor subsequent changes. Brian Armitage (Director of OBS), Dave Horn and colleagues have initiated blacklight, pitfall, and Malaise trap sampling at Deep Woods. - Dave Horn Ohio Beetle Survey UpdateAt an early meeting of the OC (March 1993) there was considerable interest expressed in initiating a statewide survey of selected Coleoptera, and in fact several of us went charging off to do just that. Bob Androw and Kip Will organized several field trips to coleopteran hot spots in southern Ohio to add to our knowledge especially of Cerambycidae and Carabidae. Barry Valentine continued his efforts on Anthribidae of Ohio. George Keeney and I continued to make fitful pitfall progress on Silphidae, and Foster Purrington provided outstanding material from many locations in Ohio. Even though the OC languished, coleopterists have been busy. Since 1995 my lab group ("the Greenhouse Gang") has obtained beetles via Malaise, pitfall, and blacklight in Vinton and Lawrence Counties as part of a multidisciplinary project on the impact of prescribed burning on oak forests. Along the way, we’ve asked: Are the beetles we are finding typical of oak forests of southern Ohio? In response, we have inventoried carabid, cerambycid, scarabaeid and silphid holdings of the O.S.U. Insect Collection, and are looking to expand this database, once it’s user friendly and web accessible. Although this is a good start, it’s already overwhelming for one lab group, and represents but a fraction of our knowledge of Ohio coleopteran distribution even in these well known families. There is a lot of additional information in other institutional and personal collections. Ultimately we would like to map diversity and distribution of selected beetle families in Ohio and employ GIS technology to identify areas of high species richness and areas rich in endemic taxa. It will also be possible to identify groups of beetles that are highly correlated with specific habitats or "signature assemblages". Such information could in turn be used to predict the occurrence of similar assemblages of species occurring in similar yet unsurveyed habitats in Ohio (and surrounding states) in order to develop conservation priorities. This is a project tailor-made for an organization like the OC and you’ll be hearing more about it in the coming months. Meanwhile, George, Foster and I are nearing semi-completion of the Silphidae of Ohio, and Barry has complete records of the Anthribidae. You will hear more about this in the next OC. - Dave Horn American Burying Beetle Returning to OhioThe American burying beetle (ABB, alias Nicrophorus americanus), is the largest member of its genus in North America. It once ranged from the Atlantic Coast to central Kansas and Nebraska, and from southern Canada to northern Florida and Texas. During the early half of this century the beetles quietly disappeared from their former haunts and are now limited to isolated populations in AR, KS, MA, NE, OK, RI and SD. In Ohio the ABB was apparently widespread but not very common, and we know of records from Auglaize, Erie, Franklin, Hocking, Lucas, Ottawa, Washington and Wayne counties. All were collected before 1940 with the exception of a single ABB found in 1974 near Old Man’s Cave in Hocking Co. This tantalizing record represents the last known mainland occurrence of the ABB east of the Mississippi River. In 1989 the ABB was listed as a federally endangered species, the first beetle so listed. A recovery plan was initiated including intensive searches for remnant populations. In Ohio we have carpet bombed Hocking and Vinton Counties with baited and unbaited pitfall traps and after over 60,000 trap-nights in these two counties alone we can safely say that (1) there are lots of Nicrophorus spp. around, (2) the ABB is not included among them, and (3) there’s nothing quite like putrid snake. Another aspect of recovery is reintroduction. The ABB has been successfully reestablished on Nantucket and Penikese Islands (MA) and the time has come to attempt a mainland reintroduction. We are pleased that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has selected Ohio to lead this effort, due to the 1974 record from Hocking Co. Next month, 20-25 beetle pairs will be removed from a healthy population (in Oklahoma) and airlifted to Columbus. A crack team of veterans from the 60,000 trap nights is waiting by the phone as you read this, and stands ready to immediately release the beetles on fresh carrion under protective covers in suitable habitat in southern Ohio (not too far from Old Man’s Cave). If reintroduction of ABB is successful, we’ll host an OC party to welcome back another component of Ohio’s primeval forest community. (By the way, if you know of any records of ABB from counties other than those listed, please let us know. Thanks.) - George Keeney & Dave Horn Biocontrol Beetles on the Twelfth Avenue Parking GarageThose of you who know the Ohio State University campus in Columbus are aware that George Keeney's world class Insectary sits atop the seven floor parking garage on 12th Avenue, along with entomological research greenhouses and Plant Biology's Botanical Conservatory. Here also are some laboratories and offices of Entomology personnel. Dave Horn and I have a couple of 28 ft. screen houses on the open roof where we are growing the introduced wetland invader weed, Purple Loosestrife. This aggressive exotic has threatened native hydrophyte assemblages across the continent by replacing the natural diversity with dense monotypic stands of recalcitrant canes. The alarming invasion of Purple Loosestrife into North American wetlands over the past fifty years has galvanized efforts to find solutions other than chemical control. A consortium of Federal and State agencies including universities has found that a guild of six specialist European insects, mostly beetles, can successfully suppress the weed. Of the beetles, two Chrysomelidae are clearly the most effective and we are now hopefully observing the beginnings of a "meltdown" of our rooftop Purple Loosestrife from exploding larval numbers of one of these two leaf beetles, Galerucella calmariensis. Growing in plastic pots, the plants, with beetle pupae in the soil/litter zone, will be taken to weed-infested sites such as Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area (Wyandot Co.) and Dillon Wildlife Area (Licking Co.), where the eclosing adults will overwinter. Next spring we will monitor the several release sites and together with our ODNR colleagues at the Crane Creek Wildlife Research Station (Mark Witt, David Sherman, Steve Berry) we plan to congratulate ourselves for a successful 1998 first strike beetle biocontrol response to the Purple Loosestrife invasion. - Foster F. Purrington |