Yucky maids all in a row:
Hungry, day-old sawflies "tidy up" a melaleuca leaf. |
These wormy, squirmy
little kids must like their veggies--a lot! They line up neatly and munch the
soft part of the leaf until they eat it all up. Then they crawl to the next
leaf and start again.
They really can't get
enough, can they? And they don't even need ketchup!
These bugs are the
children of an insect called the melaleuca sawfly.
Some people might think
the sawfly kids look yucky. And strangely, the only things they will eat
are the leaves of a large tree, the melaleuca (mell-uh-LUKE-uh).
But that's very good
for the environment in Florida. Why? Because melaleuca trees are marsh
burglars, as you'll soon see. |
Can you see why melaleuca's
nickname is "paperbark"? |
Melaleuca, or paperbark trees, have taken over huge areas
of Florida's
Everglades.
There's lots of
water in the Everglades marsh, but melaleuca trees are thirsty thieves. They
drink so much that they can make life difficult--or impossible--for other
plants, fish and other animals.
The water-robbing
melaleuca did not always grow in the Everglades. It came from Australia. Long
before your grandparents were born, people brought melaleuca seeds into the
United States and planted melaleuca trees around the Everglades to dry out the
ground.
This worked--too well,
in fact. The trees went wild. They spread very fast. Huge parts of the
Everglades marsh are now forests of melaleuca. |
Melaleuca, how
perculia,
It's way too fast you grow!
But axe and spades won't save the
'Glades;
Try yucky maids all in a
row! |
In 1997,
scientists released the melaleuca leaf weevil in the Florida Everglades.
|
Today, most people want
to try to protect the remaining marsh, and even shrink the melaleuca forest.
That will mean getting rid of a lot of melaleuca trees.
To get some help with this, scientists from the
Agricultural Research Service went to Australia, the melaleuca's natural home.
The scientists searched
for some living creature they might be able to use as a
biocontrol--something that would harm
melaleuca, but leave other plants alone. |
|
The scientists found
several bugs happily chewing on Australian melaleuca. One was the sawfly.
Another was the gray-brown melaleuca leaf weevil--just call them "gray-b's,"
for short.
The scientists couldn't
just invite their newfound friends over for a visit, however. First they had to
make sure the gray-b's would not harm other plants.
Sure enough, the gray-b's were very
finicky, eating only the leaves of melaleuca.
Since then, the
scientists have set loose hundreds of gray-b's in the Everglades melaleuca
forest. The young gray-b's are taking the melaleuca down a peg, one leaf at a
time. |
Above,
visitors at the first release of melaleuca leaf weevils walk amid 50-foot-high
melaleucas. The trail is made of melaleuca chips! |
A female
adult sawfly prepares to lay her eggs on a melaleuca leaf. Go, Mom!
|
If they scarf down
enough leaves, a melaleuca tree won't be able to survive. That's because leaves
are where the melaleuca, like any green plant, makes its food.
Scientists hope that,
in time, the gray-b's will help kill off many of the melaleuca trees.
Meanwhile, they're also
testing the young sawflies and other bugs to make sure they're safe to release
in Florida. If they pass, some may be released to join the gray-b's in their
melaleuca feeding frenzy.
Then the Everglades could someday be
more like its old self again. |
|
Those
trees don't stand a chance!
|
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