#Nobody here but us trees professional

She was dispatched around South Island Douglas-fir sites to collect seed and look for Wasp 1.

#Nobody here but us trees professional

In 2019, they had at their disposal an intern named Sonia Lee,вЂ‹ who was an undergraduate at an English university and undertaking a year-abroad professional placement at Landcare. To learn more, Dr Simon FowlerвЂ‹ and colleagues mostly working at Manaaki Whenua - Landcare ResearchвЂ‹ launched a research programme. * Surprise wasp release to control pest plant, okay with Auckland Council * Trees keep wasp numbers low, study finds * MДЃori nailed it: KaiwД“tДЃ is a tree on which wД“tДЃ feast * Parasitic wasps that leave mummified corpses Northland's unlikely new environmental heroes Nobody knows why Wasp 1 has this limited impact here. But in Europe, Wasp 1 can eat 100 per cent of the available Douglas-fir seeds. In some years, seed losses can exceed 20 per cent and other years very little. The chalcid, which weвЂ™ll call Wasp 1, does not have much effect on Douglas-fir in New Zealand, according to a 1977 study. Called the Douglas-fir seed chalcid,вЂ‹ they are just three millimetres long and when in the larval stage, they eat Douglas-fir seed. In the 1920s, a tiny wasp was accidentally introduced to New Zealand.

The tale starts with Douglas-fir trees, which Kiwi timber merchants call oregonвЂ‹ and sometimes Canadian oregon.вЂ‹ ItвЂ™s been grown commercially for over a century and is today the second most common plantation tree after radiata.вЂ‹ Stick with it, because itвЂ™s fun in a scienceyвЂ‹ way. This is a story about two tiny wasps, mighty Douglas-firвЂ‹ trees, an old mystery solved, and an undergraduate intern. The species is native to western North America and a valuable commercial timber tree in NZ.