Episode 1: Spotted Lanternfly/ parasitic wasp

The transcription discusses the issue of spotted lanternflies, an invasive species that originated from Northern China and arrived in the US in 2014. These flies are harmful to fruit crops and trees as they have a special mouth part that allows them to destroy crops by eating them. They also reproduce rapidly, with one fly laying 50 eggs at a time. While they are not directly harmful to humans, they pose a threat to agriculture, which is why it is important to kill them. The use of pesticides is not feasible due to the widespread infestation, and biological management, which involves using one invasive species to fight another, is being considered as an alternative. The government has implemented a plan to combat the spread of spotted lanternflies, and individuals are encouraged to report sightings and help reduce their numbers. Have you ever wondered if parasites live in your backyard? Are you scared of all these things that can make you sick when you go outside? Welcome back to Disease Backyard Kids. I'm Victoria. I'm Rae. I'm Rob. And today we're going to be exploring those spotted and annoying red flies that cover your yard during the summer months, and especially if you live in PA, like we all do here, you've definitely killed one million of them. So we're going to talk about what are those annoying insects and why is everyone killing them? Do any of you have a guess on the insect? I just think they're really annoying. They're constantly all over the place and they are a pain in the butt to deal with. So can you tell us why we have to kill them? Yeah. I mean, I'm sure you guys have heard the name, the spotted lanternfly. The fancy scientific name is Lycoma delicatula. I probably butchered that, but just know that there's a fancy name for them. This is scientific. And so a little bit about them. They are a fly, lanternfly, I mean, it's in the name, but they are actually very invasive to the U.S. and they're native to Northern China. So they came to America via the shipping trade in 2014. So they're a pretty new introduction to the U.S. and you guys know, like, you've seen these things all over the place, so you know they've been super widespread. Have you guys ever seen them, like, eating anything or anything like that? A couple of times here and there. Definitely saw a few in my backyard last summer. It was really rough, but, you know, we made it through, we made it out the mud. I honestly just see them sitting at my front door waiting to get in. Patiently waiting? Yeah, patiently waiting. And then I murder them right there. In cold blood. Wow. Yeah. I mean, that's good, actually. They're a super harmful pest to Pennsylvania specifically because they love to eat fruit crops and trees. So if you have any sort of fruit in your backyard, even if you leave out fruit, you better watch out. They have a special sucking mouth part, which seems kind of weird, but it's kind of like a straw to eat fruits that just allows them to, like, destroy crops. And the thing is, there's so many of them and they're really effective at eating these fruits that, like, it's going through the population of crops. You know, Rae, I have a question. How is one tiny two-inch bug able to disseminate all these fruit trees? Yeah, I mean, just because they have, you know, a straw basically attached to them doesn't mean, you know, they are tiny, so it's hard to say that they're killing different crops. But basically what they do is they cause these oozing wounds on trees, so they just puncture a bunch of tiny holes in the tree, actually, which causes the trees to have sap coming down to them. And what will happen is the wounds, like, quote-unquote, they get infected on the tree, and the trees actually start to mold. So it's kind of a weird phenomenon to think that this living tree has a bunch of holes in it and literally is, like, molding. But yeah, it's really harmful, and just generally, too, like, you know, fruits are a huge, like, agricultural product, and, like, you know, killing, like, little bugs killing all these fruits is really harmful. And also it's worth noting that, you know, one spotted lanternfly can lay 50 eggs at one time. Not in their lifetime. They can lay just 50 eggs at once, so they can have a ton of kids during their lifetime. I'm saying kids, offspring kids, you know what I mean. And the reason that happens is because it's to maintain their population. I mean, you guys know how much you're killing these things, and, you know, if they want to survive, then they've got to lay 50 eggs at a time to make sure there's still something left. Right. So, and I don't mean to sound like I'm coming off wrong here, but why should someone like us care? Like, what's the big takeaway from something as drastic as this? Yeah, I mean, the real question, Rob, is do you like eating fruit? I do. I am quite the fruit guy, actually. I mean, think about this harsh, cruel world. If they take over, well, generally, if they're, you know, getting huge and not, like, giant, like, physically giant, but if their population gets really big and there's, like, you know, uncontrolled spotted lanternflies, there will be no more fruit. You will live a sad, sad life, fruitless. Yeah, that would be pretty depressing, I can't lie. However, I mean, the good thing is you're not in danger directly, you know. That is a bonus, I guess. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if you've, it's easy pickings to kill these things, you know. They're not, they don't have any fangs. They're not poisonous to humans, although, you know, if you really wanted to eat one, you probably could, but if you have a dog, no. It might cause, I mean, it was interesting, when we were looking at, when we were researching this for this podcast, actually, there's some dogs, if they eat one, they'll vomit and stuff, so if you have a dog, don't let it eat them. Don't feed it to them, either. But yeah, I mean, even though they are bright colors, and you might think, like, oh, like giant bright colors, like don't eat, don't eat, that only kind of applies if you're a bird. For humans, I mean, it's a good rule to live by, and don't, you know, eat random invasive insects, which I don't feel like either of you would be doing, but you know, they aren't directly dangerous to humans in like a, you're going to get hurt by them. It's just, they're a threat to our agriculture. Well, bouncing back on that, if they aren't a threat to us specifically, you know, they're a threat to our agriculture, and you know, we always hear, anytime you see one, immediately kill it, but why are we supposed to kill them if they're not a threat to us, but they're a threat to our agriculture? Can you explain a little bit more about that, as to why we should kill them immediately? Yeah, I mean, it kind of seems silly, like, like you've probably, you probably both have like, been told, like when you move to Pennsylvania, or maybe you're from Pennsylvania, but like, when you moved here, like, were either of you told, like, specifically, like, you need to kill these things? Yeah, one of the first things I was told was, if you see one, kill it, and I was like, I don't understand, why should I kill them? They're not harming me, they're not biting me. Yeah. What are they doing? No, yeah, I mean, it is, you know, it's easy to be like, yeah, like, you know, don't they have like pesticides and stuff for, like, you know, protecting our crops? Like, why do we have to kill this? Like, you know, I'm not managing a fruit tree farm. But this is actually not just a level of like, you know, I'm like, in my house, and I see a spider, I'm gonna kill it, because I like, I'm scared of spiders. This is actually government mandate, which seems crazy. Like, you know, I know, like, the USDA, which is cool. Just trust me that they're, you know, the big head honchos of agriculture. I really couldn't, I really couldn't tell you what that stands for at this moment. It is 9am in the morning. So, you know, but just trust me that the USDA, which is the Department of Agriculture, basically has an entire, like 20 page five year plan to fight these things. So it's serious business. So they're basically telling you in this five page manifesto of killing spotted lanternflies. They're basically saying, okay, guys, what I want you to do is, instead of trying to like use different forms of pest management, they just want everyone to literally kill them. Their strategy is having like people report where they see spotted lanternflies, and help map out where the invasive species are. And they just have as many people killing them as possible to just try and reduce their numbers and help out the crops. So I'm going to ask like the obvious question, I feel like here, how can pesticides are a bad idea? Like, how come they're not being used the way that they are used to defend other invasive species from plants? Yeah, I mean, that's, that's a great idea, because it's like, why would you have 1 million people trying to smack these things when they have 50 eggs at a time, you know, no person's going to be able to kill them that many at once. But the reason they're not using pesticides is because spotted lanternflies have literally invaded all of Pennsylvania nearly, and they're even spreading like, um, north and south on the east coast. So the issue is, you can't just like gas an entire city with pesticides to try and like get rid of them. And, and because they reproduce so much, they're just really hard to like, manage compared because, you know, also, if you use pesticides, you know, you're going to kill some of the native species that are beneficial. And we really want to specifically target spotted lanternflies, which is a really hard thing to do in like pest management strategies. So, um, yeah, like pesticides in a small, like contained area, it helps. But it's like, if you use a bunch of pesticides, and then you know, like you kill everything else, and then like more spotted lanternflies can just come in and be like, Oh, nice, like you killed all my competitors. Like, picky picking. Yeah. But, um, an option that was also proposed is biological management, which is a little different from physical management, like killing them, and like chemical management, like using pesticides. So what is the biological management that was proposed? Yeah. So the idea of biological management is taking an invasive species and like making it fight another invasive species. So you kind of it's kind of like pick your battle, um, which I'll get into this a little more. But like the idea of, you know, we have spotted lanternflies, and we do not like spotted lanternflies, right? They're extra bad, like our agriculture. But what we can do is we can take another invasive species that might not necessarily that either only target spotted lanternflies, because it's also invasive. So maybe like in its native area, like this is a huge like predator of spotted lanternflies. And so they want to basically input another invasive species to kind of like live in the same area, take over and just target that population. And so for spotted lanternflies, there's a parasitic wasp that was actually found, um, to live and like take over the spotted lanternfly eggs. Wow. That sounds almost like too good to be true. Um, is there anything like risky or worth noting about and adding a second invasive species into the mix? I mean, I'm sure you guys could think of some reasons why you don't just want to I mean, we look at spotted lanternflies, you can see that you don't just want to, you know, be thrown invasive species in the US like that, or anywhere, frankly. Um, and that's it is is risky, because you don't want to risk it like inputting an invasive species that starts really affecting a bunch of other native species. And so that is why, you know, the USDA manifesto is not used. And it doesn't like emphasize biological management, because while you know, we have read papers that basically say like this parasite and parasite just to make sure everyone's on the same page about it is when one, like in this case, when the wasp like lives in and takes over the eggs, and it kind of lives and feeds off the spotted lanternfly eggs, which means they can't they die. Basically, there's no furthering the population. Um, yeah, and just the reason it's not heavily used, it's just because it is so risky. But you know, there are some success stories. I don't know if you guys are familiar with the gypsy moth at all. No, I can't. Yeah, not really. Yeah, I mean, it's from I wasn't either. But now that I'm like, you know, super, super in an expert on biological management. Actually, in the Upper East Coast, they had a similar issue. It was sometime in the 1900s, where they had the gypsy moth, which was basically this invasive moth species, and they found a species of parasitic wasp, the same actually that they found to target spotted lanternfly eggs, completely decimate the gypsy moth population. It didn't have any effect on the other native species in the area. It only fed off of the gypsy moth. And it did reduce the moth populations enough that natural predators began to like eat the gypsy moth. Wow. Yeah, so, you know, they didn't, they really like were very specific. And the thought is, you know, a similar strategy could be used for spotted lanternflies. And just to be clear, if any of you are wondering the scientific name of these wasps, it's the abbreviation here is Okuvane. So, you know, you can try and Google that. You can look at our sources at the end of this presentation to learn a little more, but I may have butchered that. Yeah, it sounds serious. It really is. I mean, and you know, it also is important to note, though, that the parasitic wasps love the moths, but they're not a huge fan of the spotted lanternfly eggs. They're not their first choice. So while they do parasitize, so they do live in and eat off spotted lanternflies, they don't necessarily, it's not their go to food. It's like second choice. Like it's, you know, they'll do it if it's there, but like there's better options in the moths. So, you know, it is a really interesting new strategy that, you know, with more research could possibly happen and no more smashing of spotted lanternflies. Right. So can you talk a little bit more about, you know, future work about this and what people have to look out for and what people should be doing with these spotted lanternflies? Yeah. I mean, while, you know, there is the possibility of different strategies working in the future, like currently physically killing them has actually really reduced the densities of spotted lanternfly in Pennsylvania significantly enough that like it's shown that it's working. So even though it might seem like you might be like, God, I have to smack another one of these things. Like I got spotted lanternfly guts all over my hand, like it's working. And so if we keep killing them, we're on track to minimize their populations. But in the future, there still is, as I mentioned a little bit ago, there is the possibility to use parasite host relationships between insects, which is basically using wasps, aka parasites, specifically like parasitic wasps, you know, not all wasps are parasites, but anyways, to kill bugs like the spotted lanternflies, because they are just like able to, you know, decimate those populations theoretically. So if you see a spotted lanternfly in your backyard, make sure you do kill it. And in its final moments, you can find solace in the fact that its family might be brutally killed by wasps in the future. And you can, and you can go back inside with a smile on your face. Yeah, that's a way to think about that murder's a good thing in this instance. I'm not going to endorse that murder's a good thing. When it comes to spotted lanternflies. Yeah, I mean, you guys can definitely if you're curious about what other invasive species live in your backyard, you can check it out. You can just look up invasive species, Pennsylvania, there's a ton you can if you really love to kill bugs, you're gonna have a great day when you look at the list. So, you know, another fun thing to check out. But yeah, that's all we have for you today, guys. A little brief intro into, you know, what parasites can do to help reduce spotted lanternfly populations. And, and, you know, what are spotted lanternflies? And why might you see them in your backyard? Well, thank you, Ray, for talking about all that. That was very informative. And now I know. Thank you. Appreciate it. That was very insightful. Happy to help out guys.