FOCB volunteers are raising beetles to control purple loosestrife in Mud Lake. Read about the project.
This growing season, a few volunteers are helping us raise Galerucella or “Cella” beetles to continue biocontrol of invasive purple loosestrife in Mud Lake. In Eurasia, where the plant and beetle are native, the beetle’s entire life cycle depends on the purple loosestrife plant. Its foraging activities stress the plant, keeping it smaller and producing less seed, allowing a diversity of plants to coexist.
Starting in March, volunteers helped harvest and pot nearly thirty loosestrife plants. After letting the plants grow for a few weeks, we collected beetles from the wild. Sensing an approach, the beetles freeze as a self-defense mechanism and with a small shake of the plant will easily fall into a container trap. After collecting, volunteers gathered to help set up netting to contain the beetles to the loosestrife plants in our beetle rearing nursery. Now we wait until the beetles lay their eggs and soon multiply in the masses. We’ll know they’re ready to release when there’s not much foliage left on the plants. We expect to load up several canoes to release the beetles across Mud Lake in July/Aug.
Harvesting Cella Beetles
Galerucella Beetle
Volunteers setting up netting to contain the beetles on loosestrife plants
Biocontrol efforts have been helping control invasive loosestrife populations in wetlands across the state for over 25 years. Continued reintroductions of the beetles are still needed to keep large populations under control. This will allow other native wetland plants the chance to coexist as they adapt to the changes brought on by the fast introduction of new species from other parts of the world at rates faster than any time in the history of plant evolution.
Shout out to our volunteers Alex Mann, Tom Thornton, and Marty Honel. This project has been possible because of you.
