Insect Trap Collecting
Topic: Biodiversity
Today, myself and another teacher working at Tremont went to collect insects at three locations in the Smokies.  We are doing this to assist in trying to see if the Emerald Ash Borer has made its way into our park.  The Emerald Ash Borer is a Buprestide that is native to Asia.  It is considered and exotic envasive species.  It has already done condierate damage in Michigan, Indiana, Maryland and Ohio.  The study we are helping with is designed to find the insect before it gets out of control.  When an envasive species is introduced to an environment, it can cause A LOT of damage because it does not have any natural predators.  So it reproduces without a way to balance the population.  If this species is found in our park, it has the potential to completley destroy our ash trees.  We collect and Bruprestide beetles we find (we do have some that are native) and place them in a vial with a label to be analyzed.  Then we scrape the sticky stuff off the board and reapply fresh goo.  Unfortunatly, this trap attracts species we are not looking for. This is unfortunate but the only way we have to attract these beetles at this time.  Hopefully, we will not find any fo the Emerald Ash Borers!