BOISE, Idaho — For two years, Boise State University researcher Wyatt Williams has glued bark beetles to a slender rod on a magnetic axis and coaxed them with a soft puff to fly in circles for up to 10 hours. The 29-year-old Williams is experimenting with the beetles, smaller than Lincoln's head on a penny, to learn the secrets of why they attack the region's conifers.
Across the western United States and Canada, bark beetles similar to Williams' have killed tens of millions of forest acres, threatening not only the timber industry but boosting the incidence of massive wildfires. The Potato fire in Idaho's Rocky Mountains has been burning in beetle-killed timber since July 27, for instance, and has cost taxpayers some $8 million.
This is why the U.S. Forest Service paid Williams and Ian Robertson, a BSU biology professor, $70,000 to put their beetles on "flymills." It hopes the knowledge gained will help improve forest management, as drought and climate change make the region's trees more susceptible to insect destruction. Douglas fir beetles usually attack trees felled by wind. Sometimes, however, they make a beeline for healthy trees, especially when the insect population rises, even though the sap in live trees can engulf and kill them.
"The question we're asking is, 'Why be the first beetle to attack a live tree?' " Robertson said. "Think about it like landing on a beach at D-Day: It's riskier to be in the first wave."
His hypothesis: Weaker beetles would be more likely to engage in risky behavior. So he gave Williams the job of flying the critters stored inside frozen 2-foot sections of Douglas fir, recording their fat loss, and then unleashing them on selected trees in the Boise National Forest to see how quickly they start chowing down.
So far, Robertson and Williams say their hypothesis — that weakened beetles will be the first to start chomping on trees — isn't panning out. Beetles that flew the longest on their flymills, the ones with the most-depleted fat reserves, were actually slower than their plumper, more-rested counterparts to attack live trees.
Not all the data has been analyzed, however, so the scientists remain optimistic their search may still reveal secrets behind mass beetle attacks.
"Patterns that are initially hidden might still emerge," Robertson said, a beetle spinning round and round on a flymill behind him.
