Using Wasps to find

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Using Wasps to find Beetles
Biosurveillance
Philip Careless1,2, Steve Marshall1, Bruce Gill2
and Gard Otis1 (1) University of Guelph, (2)
Canadian Food Inspection Agency
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Whos Who
Bee vs. Wasp
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Bee vs. Wasp
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• Bees are often covered with hairs and collect
  pollen which they feed to their larva.

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Bee vs. Wasp
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Social Bees
Bee vs. Wasp
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Solitary Bees
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Bee vs. Wasp
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• Wasps can be very diverse in appearance but feed
  their larva meat.

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Bee vs. Wasp
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• Like bees, some wasps are social. Nests contain
  a queen and many sterile workers.

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• Most wasps are solitary. One female provisions
  a nest on her own, without the help of other
  wasps.

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Thread-waist Wasp
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Mud Daubers
Bee vs. Wasp
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Gold Digger
Bee vs. Wasp
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Cicada Killer
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Tachysphex
Bee vs. Wasp
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Cuckoo Wasp (Kleptoparasites)
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Bee vs. Wasp
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• Across its broad range the solitary wasp
  Cerceris fumipennis preys on Buprestid Beetles
  (Metallic Wood-boring Beetles). The wasp is
  known to prey on 91 different species of adult
  buprestid beetle.

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Bee vs. Wasp
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Bee vs. Wasp
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• Nesting at locations with hard-packed sandy
  soil, the wasp can be found from Ottawa down to
  Pelee National Park. In the US it is known to
  every state east of the Rocky Mountains.

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Bee vs. Wasp
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• A typical colony of 30 nests will collect
  upwards of 90 buprestids in a single day.

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Bee vs. Wasp
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• By simply waiting at the burrow entrances a
  human observer can quickly gain an understanding
  of what types of buprestid beetles can be found
  in the surrounding forests.

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Bee vs. Wasp
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• This wasp is so skilled at finding buprestids
  that it has provided us with species previously
  unknown to Canada.

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Bee vs. Wasp
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• The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), like
  the USDA, is working to understand and contain
  the spread of Emerald Ash Borer (EAB).

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Bee vs. Wasp
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Bee vs. Wasp
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• EAB has devastated the Ash forests of
  southwestern Ontario and most of the adjacent
  States (nearly half a million square miles are
  under quarantine).

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• In Canada and the United States it is accepted
  that successful management of the beetle will
  depend on powerful detection tools.

Bee vs. Wasp
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• Visual Inspection

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• How can monitoring find the green needle in a
  haystack?

Bee vs. Wasp
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• Current monitoring for EAB involves setting
  Trap Trees or purple Panel Traps across a
  survey area.

Bee vs. Wasp
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• We are exploring another option A native wasp
  that evolved millions of years ago to
  specifically collect buprestids beetles.

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How to get the wasps to where they are needed?
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• Each night the female wasp sleeps in her burrow.
  It is possible to cut out the nest (with its
  sleeping occupant) and then move the nest to a
  new location

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• The following morning the transplanted wasp
  adjusts to its new surroundings by performing an
  orientation flight and then continues to collect
  beetles.

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Bee vs. Wasp
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• In 2007 we began our nest transplant work using
  the Colony-scoop. While successful the system
  proved labour intensive.

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Bee vs. Wasp
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• In early 2008 we employed a cookie cutter like
  device (originally designed to extract Nomia
  melanderi (Apis) nests in Central United States.
  Nomia melanderi is a ground nesting species of
  bee used to pollinate alfalfa crops.

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Bee vs. Wasp
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• This tool allowed us to cut out blocks of soil
  and load them into cardboard boxes the Box-nest.

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Bee vs. Wasp
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• The cookie cutter (Box-nests) proved too
  labour-intensive, costly and disruptive to the
  site, considering the limited number of wasps and
  nests it successfully cut free from the ground.
  In addition the boxes faired poorly during
  transport.

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Bee vs. Wasp
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• In response to the cookie cutter/box-nest
  issues we began experimenting with Tube-nests.
   They have since proven to be much more
  time-efficient, extremely cheap and less
  disruptive to the natural colony.

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Bee vs. Wasp
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• We began regularly watering part of colonies -
  three centimetres of water every five days
  (artificial rainfall).

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Bee vs. Wasp
Area to be watered
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Bee vs. Wasp
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• A hole punch and a small strip of plastic are
  used to created a Collar. Placed over each
  nest entrance, the collar controls the flow of
  beetles into the nest.

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Bee vs. Wasp
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• What number of buprestids must be checked to
  declare an area EAB free (when can we move on)?

Prey diversity curves
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Bee vs. Wasp
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• In July 2008 we began a comparison between
  active and passive monitoring systems at various
  sites in Toronto. The sites was previously
  considered to have either low or no EAB
  infestation.

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• The severe weather which raged across southern
  Ontario wreaked havoc with the prism-traps and
  mobile-nests.

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• Wasps caught away from the nest by a violent
  storm almost never returned (reason unknown).

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• With severe storms daily, during late July and
  the first three weeks of August, our mobile
  colonies were repeatedly decimated.

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• Both the prism-traps and mobile wasps locate EAB
  at sites that showed no visual sign of
  infestation.

Bee vs. Wasp
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Prism Trap Mobile-nests (June 13th July
28th, 47 days on site) Site 1 0.17 per
day 8.67 per day (using 5 wasps for 3
days) Site 4 0.21 per day 5.00 per day
(using 3 wasps for 1 day) Site 9 0
per day 0 per day (using 6 wasps
for 3 days) Note the 6 wasps at site 9
collected 28 native buprestids during the 3 days.
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• When the weather did allow us to make our
  comparisons, the handful of wasps performed a
  stunning monitoring job.

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Bee vs. Wasp
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• Tube-nest Fidelity Can we ensure the wasp cut
  out of the ground remains with the nest for the
  duration of the summer?

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Cerceris californica
The Pest
Our Ally
Improving Efficiency
Agrilus bilineatus
Mobility

• Prey Diversity changes during the wasps two
  month flight season.

Comparison Trials
The Next Step

• How can this changing prey diversity (at and
  between sites) be used to our advantage?

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June
August
July
The Pest
EAB
Our Ally
Cerceris fumipennis
Improving Efficiency
manipulated Cerceris flight season
Mobility
Comparison Trials
The Next Step

• Manipulate the emergence date of mobile wasps
  such that the overlap in EAB and wasp flight
  seasons is increased?

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Bee vs. Wasp
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• During the 2009 Ontario flight season we hope to
  complete the Prism-trap, Trap-trees and Tube-nest
  trials (if the weather allows us).

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People Who Made This Work
University of Guelph Morgan Jackson, Steve
Paiero, Dave Cheung, Dr. Matt Buck, Brenna Wells,
Matt Ireland, Carrie Woods and the Insect
Systematics Lab
Canadian Food Inspection Agency Wendy
Deevy-Laviolett, Ann Caya, Erin Bullas-Appleton,
Troy Kimoto, Rob Farvin, Linda DeVerno, Dr.
Eduard Jendek, Dr. Vasily Gerbennikov and Ken
Marchant
Canadian Forest Service Dr. Barry Lyons
Canadian Wildlife Service Dr. Dave Moore
Normandale Fish Hatchery Paul Malcomson
TerraSystems Dr. Saewan Koh
City of Windsor Marc Edwards and Paul Pratt
Walpole First Nations Clint Jacobs
Scouts Canada Mark Purcell
Halton Region Conservation Authority Dr. Dolf
Dejong
St. Laurence Cement Lesley Hymers and Diane
Bloomfield
Ontario Parks Ross Hart, Jim Wigle Ken Dawson,
Keith Early, Rick Hornsby, Emily Slavik, Sandy
Dobbyn, Dave Boddington, Greg Kocot, and Jill
VanNiekeck
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People Who Made This Work
Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Sven-Erik
Spichiger and Bradley Regester
United States Forest Service Dr. Dennis Souto,
Michael Bohne, Dr. Richard Reardon and Glenn
Rosenholm
North Carolina State University Dr. Christine
Nalepa
Highland Hammock State Park Terry Hingtgen
West Virginia Department of Agriculture Laura
Miller
Maryland Department of Agriculture Dr. Gaye
Willams
JR Ding Darling NWR Joyce Mazourek
Michigan State University Merrie Parr
Clearview Farms Stuart and Sheryl Byerly
Queens Biological Research Station Floyd Connor
Maine Forest Service Colleen Teerling
Archbold Biological Station Debbie Upp and Dr
Mark Deyrup
West Virginia Department of Natural Resources
Sissies Summers
United States Department of Agriculture Jason
Watkins, Dr. Vic Mastro and Dr. Jim Cane
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Locate and monitor more colonies
Bee vs. Wasp
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Pest Added to the Equation
Streamlining System
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Wasp Watcher Volunteers
Contact me at pcareles_at_uoguelph.ca www.cerceris.in
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