All Clips | Elsa Youngsteadt | Entomology, science writing

Protecting Pollinators in Urban Landscapes Conference

Posted on October 3, 2017 by elsa

October 2, 2017

It’s almost here–the second national Protecting Pollinators in Urban Landscapes Conference, October 9-11, 2017. This event brings together academic and industry researchers, practitioners, and extension educators to discuss new research and real-world challenges in pollinator conservation. I co-organize this event with colleagues here at NC State and at Michigan State University, and am looking forward to this year’s awesome lineup of speakers and poster presenters. The next conference will be in North Carolina in 2019.

Posted in bees, insects | Comments Off

T. B. Mitchell: The Man Behind The Bees of the Eastern United States

Posted on September 9, 2016 by elsa

from American Entomologist
September 2016

by Elsa Youngsteadt, Heather Moylett, Margarita López-Uribe, and April Hamblin

In the mothball-scented NC State University Insect Museum, thousands of bees bear the name T. B. Mitchell. The tiny, terse specimen labels, now caramel-colored and flaking, convey a skeleton history of a long and active career. “Highlands, NC, 1920, T. B. Mitchell” reads one nondescript little black sweat bee. An exotic, peanut-sized leafcutting bee, delightfully fluffy and pale as thistledown, came from “La Serena, Chile, 1962, Mitchell and Wagenknecht.” Altogether, Mitchell’s specimens account for more than 34,000 of the approximately 47,000 bees in the collection, which we, the authors, have used regularly to confirm (or correct) our own determinations. Naturally, we began to wonder about this Theodore Bertis Mitchell whose bees we examined with such attention. So we read his thesis, delved into his archives at NC State’s D. H. Hill Library, chatted with those who knew him, and inquired among other bee biologists.

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Squash Bees Are Pollinating Your Pumpkins and Zucchini

Posted on August 31, 2015 by elsa

from the Frank Lab Website
August 17, 2015

A female squash bee foraging in a male pumpkin flower (note the pollen on her back legs). (Photo: E. Youngsteadt)

For years, I have felt rather sheepish for never having seen a squash bee. As native bees go, these fetching little stripey, round-faced bees get a lot of press. They’re common and easy to recognize, and they happen to do a very specific job that’s easy to appreciate: They pollinate around 2/3 of the commercially grown squash in the US. When bee enthusiasts are polled for their favorite species, someone always picks the squash bee. So yeah, I felt a little left out.

Read more about the biology and conservation of squash bees (and how I finally met them).

Note: This post went up right at the end of squash bee season in my garden in Raleigh; they were active from late June through early August.

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Cicada Killer Wasps Are on the Wing

Posted on August 3, 2015 by elsa

from the Frank Lab Website
July 20, 2015

A male cicada killer perches atop a retaining wall, keeping watch over his territory. (Photo: E. Youngsteadt)

North Carolina’s steamy July days bring out some of our most spectacular solitary wasps. These sleek and streamlined hunters are quite docile toward humans, but are to be feared by other insects and spiders. The largest of these wasps in North Carolina is the cicada killer (Sphecius speciosus). Females can be up to an inch and a half long and weigh about a gram—as much as a shelled almond.

Read more about the biology and management of these beneficial wasps.

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New paper: Ants make cities cleaner

Posted on December 11, 2014 by elsa

from the Frank Lab Website
December 2, 2014

This is an essay I wrote about our research on ecology of urban insects; the results were just published in Global Change Biology.

The first time we came back to an empty cage in Highbridge Park, I thought there was a problem.

This was a cage cobbled together out of a fry basket from a restaurant supply store plus a square of hardware cloth, and it was firmly tacked to the ground with landscape staples. With its snug, quarter-inch mesh, it should let most insects move freely, while keeping vertebrates out. With holes any bigger than a quarter-inch, mice could squirm through.

And they would want to, because the cage held a chunk of Nilla Wafer, a Ruffles Original potato chip, and a slice of Oscar Meyer turkey frank. Yum.

Read more in the original post.

Additional news coverage:

The New York Times “Bugs in Manhattan compete with rats for food refuse” December 2, 2014

CBC Quirks and Quarks “Ants perform street cleaner role on Broadway” December 6, 2014

Science “Bugs in Manhattan eat thousands of kilograms of trash each year” December 2, 2014

Cities as a glimpse of the future

Posted on September 4, 2014 by elsa

from the Frank Lab Website
August 27, 2014

This is an essay I wrote about my recent research on cities and climate change; the results were just published in Global Change Biology.

About a year ago, I found myself sitting ruefully in a patch of chiggery grass by the side of the road near the little town of Bahama, North Carolina, waiting for a tow truck. I had stuck the lab pickup firmly in a ditch. It was tilted at an embarrassing, sickening angle and had one wheel lodged against the mouth of a culvert. Helpful passers-by with chains and four-wheel drives kindly offered to pull me out, but really only made matters worse.

My memory is already fuzzy about the sequence of events, but somewhere in there—between slipping into the ditch, the failed rescue attempts, and the final arrival of the giant tow truck—I did actually hike into the woods and get what I came for: eight slender red maple branches, clipped from trees growing in NC State’s Hill Forest.

Read more in the original post.

Maple branches--loaded with valuable information, sometimes hard to get.

This essay was also posted at The Abstract: NC State’s Research Blog and at LiveScience.com.

Additional news coverage:

Newsweek “Want to See the Earth After Global Warming? Move to the City” August 2014

Greenwire “Oak, maple pests thrive in warmer weather — study” August 2014

Entomology Today “Museum specimens show how scale insects will respond to climate change August 2014

Posted in climate change, insects, Observations, research papers, scale insects | Comments Off

Gardening for pollinators: A quick-start guide

Posted on July 26, 2014 by elsa

July 26, 2014

A few weeks ago, the Ridgewood Whole Foods Market in Raleigh kindly invited my colleague April Hamblin and me to represent native bees at their Share the Buzz event. I put together this mini-guide to providing room and board for native pollinators. April and I had a great time introducing passers-by to the more than 500 species of native bees in NC. I hope you will get to know some of them, too.

Click here to download the guide.

Photo courtesy of Tammy Karant, Whole Foods

Posted in insects | Comments Off

Chestnut Growers’ Guide to Site Selection and Environmental Stress

Posted on June 23, 2014 by elsa

from The Journal of the American Chestnut Foundation
May-June 2014

American chestnuts are tough, efficient trees that can reward their growers with several feet of growth per year. They’ll survive and even thrive under a range of conditions, but there are a few deal breakers that guarantee sickly, slow-growing trees. This guide, intended for backyard and small-orchard growers, will help you avoid these fatal mistakes and choose planting sites that will support strong, healthy trees. You’ll know you’ve done well when your chestnuts are still thriving a few years after planting. By then, they’ll be strong enough to withstand many stresses, from drought to a caterpillar outbreak, with much less human help.

Read more

More about the American Chestnut Foundation

Posted in American Chestnut Foundation | Comments Off

This bench is habitat

Posted on May 24, 2014 by elsa

from the Frank Lab Website
May 22, 2014

A few weeks ago, while I was sitting on a bench on campus eating lunch, a female carpenter bee startled me by flying up directly between my knees. She looked me in the eye and buzzed off. Turns out I was sitting right above the nest hole she had carved into the underside of the wooden bench. Of course, carpenter bees were patrolling just about every deck plank, bench board and fence post right then, so I didn’t think much of it.

But today, I walked past that same bench to find a whole new lively scene.

Read more to find out what else was living in the bench.

pdf

Posted in insects, Observations | Comments Off

Chestnut Growers’ Guide to Pests and Diseases

Posted on August 2, 2013 by elsa

from The Journal of the American Chestnut Foundation
May-June 2013

Growing American chestnuts is an adventure with many rewards: stately trees, delicious nuts, and conservation of an important species. But today’s chestnuts have to fend off much more than the notorious blight fungus. Other exotic pathogens and pests have arrived on the scene, and a whole host of hungry insects and mammals—both native and introduced—probably want a bite of your trees. This guide, intended for backyard and small orchard growers, will help you recognize some of the common problems and offer suggestions for how to deal with them.

Read more

More about the American Chestnut Foundation

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Recent Work (to 2017)