Columnists

If you live in Western Ontario, you know all about the Emerald Ash Borer. The tiny irridescent green bug has devastated ash trees (genus: Fraxinus) across hundreds of kilometres. Like the mountain pine beetle in Alberta and BC, the Emerald Ash Borer, an invasive species from Asia, is out of control.

The larvae of the beetle consume much of the living layer of the host ash tree, and cut off the tree’s upward flow of water and nutrients. The Emerald Ash Borer can kill a tree in as little as a year, although sometimes it takes three years for the tree to die.

How can you help? This helpful video from the University of Nebraska Lincoln shows how to identify the beetle as well as what symptoms you can look for among ash trees on your property.

If you find evidence of the pest, call your local municipality. Unfortunately the affected tree usually needs to be removed. It’s most important that you not move ash trees or wood from ash trees. Invasive species are often transported to new places in firewood; learn more about how this can happen here.

Have you dealt with insect pests attacking your trees?
What do you think should be done when a tree species is at threat?

I thought I saw an old friend on the weekend, but now I’m not sure I ever knew her at all.
After years of seeing orange lady bugs (I think I’m supposed to call them Lady Beetles), which I learned were an Asian species, I was out in the garden watering plants when I saw a bright red, black-spotted lady bug. I froze, afraid of shooing it away. I think it’s been about 10 years since I’ve seen on of these, and it was like seeing a friend I didn’t know I’d lost.

I looked up ladybugs online, hoping to learn what had happened to my red-shelled friend. But to my surprise, I learned that the iconic beetle is the seven-spotted lady beetle, a species introduced from Europe in the 1970s to control aphids. That childhood friend was not a native insect, not a part of the landscape as I had thought! For a picture of the lady beetle native to Ontario, the pink-coloured Spotted Lady Beetle, click to see the explanation from the University of Guelph.

Apparently all forms of lady beetles are helpful in controlling aphids, and also feed on dandelion pollen. They do not munch garden plants.

Are there insects you like to have in your garden? Are there others you’re trying to control?

At my post at Homemakers magazine, I’ve had the opportunity to work with writers on stories about women in developing countries who are improving quality of life for themselves and others. As a Canadian with little trouble accessing fresh water, it astounds me that, in many countries around the world, people spend hours a day collecting small quantities of water, and not necessarily safe water either. (For a convincing argument for improving access to potable water, read up on guinea worm.)

As the world becomes increasingly thirsty for fresh water, I hope that we can work for better standards for dealing with fresh water here in Canada. When I get a chance to visit friends and family in the Thousand Islands, I spend as much time around, on and in the water as possible. Lately I’ve realized that the water isn’t just a scenic pool for boats and swimming, it’s a living ecosystem that’s full of life. Kept in balance, the water is a healthy provider. Swung out of balance, the water can’t support the things it should, and we could lose a wonderful oasis and an important resource. Right now we have a growing issue with algae growth in the Great Lakes, as I noted earlier, and we also have many invasive species competing with native species. The latest threat is the quagga mussel, which looks similar to the zebra mussel but it’s a little smaller. Native to the Caspian Sea, the quagga mussel has no competition in the Great Lakes – it actually wipes out zebra mussels. The quagga mussel consumes phytoplankton, the basis of the food chain for native fish, leaving very little food for anything else, but producing a lot of waste material. The waste then blankets river and lake bottoms, and supports algae growth. In one study of Lake MIchigan, areas without quagga mussels were about 75 per cent of the biomass; in areas with the mussel, phytoplankton made up just five per cent of the biomass.
What can we do about invasive species? In big picture terms, we can ask our elected representatives to make it a requirement for ships to dump all of their ballast water before entering fresh water systems. Individually, we can be careful not to move invaders from one lake or river to another. That means thoroughly cleaning off boats before moving them to another river system, not dumping even small amounts of ballast water into a secondary lake, and not moving live fishing bait from one lake to another. Even if you don’t spot any mussels on your boat, you never know if there are quagga mussel eggs attached.

Have you come face to face with any invasive species?

Today is the UN’s International Day for Biological Diversity. Invasive species have hit us pretty hard in Canada, from the forest-decimating efforts of the mountain pine beetle, emerald ash borer and Asian long-horned beetle to the the invasion of zebra mussels and the round gobi in the Great Lakes. These invaders don’t have natural predators, so they usually thrive in new locales, displacing the native population.

What can you do to help stop the spread of invasive species? Being careful of the materials you move from one area to another, particularly when on cottaging, camping and fishing trips, is key.
- Insects are easily transported on firewood, so don’t take wood from one area to another unless it has been kiln dried
- Insects and fungi can ride along with bulbs and greenery shipped overseas, so buy locally grown plants
- Pull out invasive plants, such as purple loosestrife and English Ivy, which displace native plants and disrupt entire ecosystems
- Try to grow native plants in your garden, and avoid any invasive species that tends to spread. For a directory of native and non-native plants in Canada, consult the Evergreen Native Plants database.
- Clean off the bottom of your boat before launching it a new waterway
- Gone fishing? Don’t use the round gobi as bait

For more background on invasive species, consult this guide from Hinterland Who’s Who.