KDLG (Dillingham) reported that Paul Liedberg will be running beetle traps in Dillingham this season to monitor for exotic insects.
Article:
http://kdlg.org/post/dillingham-volunteer-monitors-invasive-beetles
Audio:
http://cpa.ds.npr.org/kdlg/audio/2013/05/051313%20web%20Beetle%20Traps%20package.mp3
In this article appearing online in the Journal of Sustainable Forestry, long-term temperature and precipitation data were shown to be important ecological drivers in determining the distribution of aspen leaf minor (Phyllocnistis populiella Chambers) and the aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) host in the state of Alaska.
The abstract is available via the URI below.
A few entomology-related presentations were given at the 2013 annual meeting of the Alaska Society of American Foresters held in Anchorage on April 24-27. The presenters kindly supplied pdf versions of their talks available from the links below.
Exotic insects of concern. Liz Graham, USDA Forest Service.
Alaska Firewood Survey. Mia Kirk, Alaska Department of Natural Resources.
The Emerald Ash Borer: Lessons learned from managing an exotic forest insect. Liz Graham, USDA Forest Service.
The recipients of the 2013 Science Fair Awards are listed below. I believe there were multiple entomology-related projects at each of the three regional science fairs.
Southeast Alaska Regional Science Fair – Gabriel Cohen, “How Sediment Slug Size Porosity Affects Benthic Macroinvertebrate Communities.”
Alaska Science & Engineering Fair – Crystal McNeilly, “A Survey of Biodiversity of Aegialites beetles in Sitka Sound.”
Interior Alaska Science Fair – Aspen and Riley French, “House Cricket Habitat Selection.”
More on the award is available on our Science Fair Award page.
Appearing in a special issue of the Canadian Entomologist on arctic entomology in the 21st century, the authors compared species diversity predictions of a three-year study of spider diversity with a single-season sampling effort using multiple methods, finding surprisingly high diversity (75 species).
The abstract is available via the URI below.
The March 2013 Newsletter of the Alaska Entomological Society is now available at the URI below.
In this monograph published in the journal Zootaxa in January, members of the genus Arganthomyza (formerly within Anthomyza) were treated. Two of the five species described as new occur in Alaska.
This is not an open access article, but the abstract is available at the the URI below.
Presentations from the 6th annual meeting are now available via the links below.
The University of Alaska Museum Insect Collection’s switch to using Arctos: A review of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Derek Sikes, UAF, UAM.
A first look at defoliation events on the Kenai Peninsula from 2000-2012 using MODIS data. Matt Bowser, USFWS.
Developing an improved trapping tool to survey cerambycid beetles: evaluation of trap type, height, habitat, and lure composition. Liz Graham, USDA Forest Service.
White Sweetclover, Pollination and Berry Production: What’s the Buzz? Christa Mulder, Katie Villano, and Laura Schneller, UAF.
Systematics of Alaskan Aegialites Beetles: Extremely Endemic or Oversplit?. Casey Bickford, UAF, UAM.
Denali Bug Camp 2012. Sayde Ridling, UAF, UAM.
Forest insect conditions in Alaska. James Kruse, USDA Forest Service.
We have set up a cafe press shop for selling clothing featuring the Alaska Entomological Society logo (URI below), with 20% of the price of items going to AKES.
In this article, which appeared in the February 2013 issue of Forest Ecology and Management, the authors studied the effects of several slash treatments on colonization rates and reproductive success of the northern spruce engraver (Ips perturbatus) on white spruce (Picea glauca). The full article should be available at one of the URI’s below. A second URI has been provided because dx.doi.org appeared to be unavailable at the time of this posting.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2012.09.040
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112712005919