Scientist finds new ash borer host

A local white fringe tree planted along the bike path is now famous as the first documented non-ash tree host of an invasive beetle that was thought to only prey upon ashes.

Also famous is the local ecologist who made the discovery thanks to perseverance and a little luck.

After scouring the village, Wright State University biology professor Don Cipollini, who lives in town, first saw the telltale signs of an emerald ash borer infestation in a white fringe tree planted along the bike path on Corry Street this summer.

Last month Cipollinis lucky discovery of a dead adult male beetle in a log of the same tree led the U.S. Department of Agriculture to officially confirm the white fringe tree as a host. Previously, it was thought that the emerald ash borer could only reproduce in and kill ash trees.

Who would have thought that whats off of the bike trail in Yellow Springs could change possibly federal policy? Cipollini said in a recent interview.

Cipollinis revelation, soon to be published in the Journal of Economic Entomology, has alarmed everyone from nursery owners to entomologists to policymakers. Not only might the white fringe tree be driven to extinction in Ohio where the native species is already threatened, but the spread of the emerald ash borer into warmer southern climes, where white fringe trees are more common in the wild, means the invasive beetle will bring even more devastation as it marches south.

The implications of Cipollinis discovery are profound. The white fringe tree, which grows wild along the Ohio River and is becoming a popular ornamental elsewhere in Ohio, may soon become quarantined by the federal government, effectively removing it from the nursery trade. His finding also opens the door to the potential that other species related to the ash, such as wild and cultivated olive trees, may be under threat from the emerald ash borer.

While some scientists are holding out hope that Cipollinis findings are an anomaly (even though he has found evidence of white fringe tree infestation elsewhere in the Dayton and Cincinnati area), most are responding with a mixture of fear and dread.

Everything we think we knew about the emerald ash borer may not be right, Cipollini said. This finding changes our view of what emerald ash borer can do. Now people are thinking Whats next?

Native to Asia, the emerald ash borer was unknown in this country until 2002, when it was discovered killing trees in southeastern Michigan and Windsor, Ontario.

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Scientist finds new ash borer host