Entomology Today features Wright State researcher

Wright State biology professor Don Cipollini finds that the emerald ash borer, which is destroying ash trees in a large part of the country, has apparently spread to a different tree.

Excerpt

Last fall, researchers at Wright State University announced they had found that emerald ash borer can develop from larvae to adulthood on a species of olive tree. Today, that study is published online in the Journal of Economic Entomology.

Their detailed report shows that 45 percent of the emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis) eggs that hatched and entered olive tree stems were recovered alive during the experiment, either as larvae during periodic debarking, as prepupae or pupae, or as adults. “The level of success observed, while lower than on susceptible North American ash trees or even white fringetree, appears to be higher than their level of success on some of their native hosts, like Manchurian ash,” says Don Cipollini, Ph.D., professor of plant physiology and chemical ecology at Wright State and lead author of the study.

Read the entire story at entomologytoday.org