Volume 7 • Number 2 • Summer 2009

The goal of UMass Extension’s work on ecosystem management, protection and restoration—featured in this issue of In Common—is to protect and manage land while minimizing the negative impacts of development. This subject is one of Extension’s seven issue areas, one in which we focus on creating networks of community leaders to work with landowners to ensure that accurate information informs their decisions.

Finding Protection in a Predator

UMass Amherst entomology professor Joseph Elkinton has recruited a first class coach in building a dream team to fight the European winter moth, an invasive import that has been defoliating trees in eastern Massachusetts at an alarming rate in recent years.

That recruit just happens to be Mother Nature herself.

The team includes Cyzenis albicans, a parasitic fly common in Europe where it generally controls winter moth outbreaks. In May, Elkinton’s research team released 2,000 of them in Wellesley’s Centennial Park with the hope of establishing the parasite in the local moth population.

Assembling a Strong Defensive Line-up

As spring blooms across the Massachusetts landscape, it’s hard to feel anything but love and respect for the pageantry of color, scent, and form that is New England’s flora – unless, that is, you happen to be Randy Prostak and you are eyeing a newfound patch of Japanese knotweed.

To Prostak, and other volunteer members of the decade-old Massachusetts Invasive Plant Advisory Group (MIPAG,) such innocent-looking specimens are about as welcome on Massachusetts soil as Attila the Hun.

While a crawling tree killer like the Asian longhorned beetle grabs all headlines – as it should – prolific plant invaders such as Japanese knotweed, purple loosestrife, burning bush, or Norway maple are quietly infiltrating, and in some areas, obliterating native plant communities. MIGPAG has classified 84 such species as invasive in Massachusetts.

Averting a Collision on New England’s Aquatic Highways

There is a huge, hidden transportation system in New England, made up of critical highways and byways that exist alongside and rival our more familiar asphalt arteries, and that remain just as critical to the health and welfare of large communities.

Where the two transportation systems intersect, the result, too often, is a silent but disastrous pileup – disastrous, most immediately, for aquatic dwellers.

“Fish and other wildlife rely on the continuity and connectivity of rivers and streams just as we rely on continuity and connectivity in our roadways,” explains Scott Jackson, who directs UMass Extension’s Natural Resources & Environmental Conservation Program (NREC). “Wherever they meet, the waterway is in danger of being fragmented, and that can really harm the larger ecosystem.”

Making Science Fun, One Vernal Pool at a Time

Certifying vernal pools, building wood duck nesting boxes, and participating in ocean clean-ups may challenge the idea of spare time fun for many young folks. Not so if you are a member of the Nature’s Navigators 4-H Science Club of Middleboro. The club’s 16 members, ages seven through 16, relax into all of the above with joy and enthusiasm.

“Science experiments and scientific jobs are multifaceted, involving several disciplines, skills and most importantly, a healthy dose of enthusiasm,” notes Carlos Fragata, one of the club’s three leaders.

Within the last year, the club has partnered with state agencies like the Department of Environmental Protection and the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, and national organizations like the Ocean Conservancy, to help protect native wildlife and areas vulnerable to overdevelopment and to maintain the integrity of local ecosystems.

…Inch by Inch, Row by Row

Gonna Make This Garden Grow

Gardens are sprouting everything, everywhere.

With renewed interest in home gardening for health, sustainability, and simple peace of mind, there is likely to be a bumper crop of questions about gardening techniques and problems. Harvest your questions and consult the UMass Extension Gardening and Home Horticulture resources.