Comments on: Massive Infestation of Beetles Threatens Mountain Pines in Western U.S.

By: Michael Ricciardi

Michael Ricciardi — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 00:45:57 +0000

Thanks for this information people. And yes, there is always an unintentional consequence (or two) whenever we intervene in Nature. Coleoptera, as an order, are most populus order of insects (number of species)–one could say, therefor, that they are one of most successful. They didn’t get that way from being to easily fooled by hormonal signals…case in point being the critical threshold (numbers of beetles at a give site) that is reached and which consequently over-rides the avoidance pheromone. Plus, as arctos noted, placing these too close to favored stands of trees runs the real risk of bringing large aggregates of beetles in contact with said trees. That said, judicious/dynamically maanaged use of such traps/lures could at least serve as an early phase (of the infestation) approach, where the idea is simply to reduced numbers as quickly as possible).

If we want plentiful wood in the future (and of curse all the other ecosystem services that forests provide), we may have to (be forced to) adopt the genetic modification root. Alternately, we could adopt a more aggressive biological pest-control strategy by introducing a highly specialized predatory life-form (a worm, or phage, for example) that attacks the larval form of the beetle. The “weaponized” life-form then dies off (ultimately) due to depleted food source (i.e., the total eradication of the beetle), or, it could be genetically altered to die after a certain life stage is complete (similar to experiments with mosquitoes… Obviously, there are risks to all of these strategies.

By: Michael Ricciardi

Michael Ricciardi — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 00:34:29 +0000

By: arctos

arctos — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:04:10 +0000

Hi MD

The repellent you speak of is called Verbenone an anti aggregant pheromone of the mountain pine beetle.It works pretty well except under the highest of beetle pressure.

The traps use an aggregant lure and if you were to intstall the traps too close to your high value pine trees you would likely lose them all to a mass attack. Caution.

If you want more information on this approach email me pinebug@gmail.com

By: MD

MD — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:01:38 +0000

I’m from Vancouver Island BC Canada, most of you will know it for Victoria BC at the South end of the Island, yeah, whatever the big city sucks.

Anyway there is a company in Delta BC called Phero Tech aka Contech Inc, I know them through my friends mother who worked for them in the 1980′s, they do have a pheromone repellent that does repel these beetles and a pheromone trap for all kinds of beetles.

They work pretty good, the repellent tells the beetles to get lost, while the trap leads them on to think they’ll be getting some “beetle lovin”

Here’s a link:
http://pherotech.com/page192.htm

The Lindgren Funnel Trap
http://pherotech.xplorex.com/page182.htm