Researcher
Profile: Phyllis BovinResearcher
Profile: Phyllis BovinWell, my master's degree focused on insects, with a special concentration on the Great Sand Dunes tiger beetle, which is endemic to this area. My research involved what is called a "natural history" study of this particular tiger beetle. Natural history studies focus on an organism's preference for a certain habitat, how they are distributed throughout that habitat, what they eat, during what seasons are they active, how they spend the winter, what their life cycles are like, how many weeks, months, or years does it take to develop into a reproductive adult, and things like that. Great Sand Dunes may look like just a big pile of sand to some people, but it has great ecological significance to the plants and animals that live here. The dunes area is what is referred to as a "biogeographical island", which means that this habitat is very distinct from the surrounding habitats (forest, desert scrub, grasslands), and so the plants and animals that specifically make the sand dunes their home reflect that in their behaviors. The insects that live there are confined to that one place because they have developed a means of existence in the sand dunes and it would be impossible for them to live outside of that area.
I am also interested in studying about the Ips beetle in our piñon forests. The Ips beetle is a native, naturally occurring species of beetle in our forests. Part of its natural history requires using a piñon tree to lay eggs, which develop into larvae and then adults to complete its life cycle. Normally they occur in low numbers in the forest, and are not usually noticed. Usually, when an adult beetle bores into a healthy tree, it will produce enough sticky pitch to push the beetle out through the beetle's original entry hole. A few beetles might get into a healthy tree here and there, but the tree generally survives. A healthy tree has sufficient moisture to produce enough pitch to push out the beetle. General scientific thinking asserts that when the trees are stressed, such as during the recent drought, the beetles are more successful at attacking and killing trees, because there are less water resources to enable the tree to make enough pitch to push out the offending beetles. The Ips beetles bore into trees, bringing with them a fungus that clogs the tree's vascular system. If a lot of beetles bore into the same tree, the vascular system (the system that transports nutrients into a tree) may become so clogged by the fungus that the tree essentially starves to death.
To make this story more interesting and complex, it is known that the Ips beetles have a very sharp ability to sense chemicals signals. When trees are stressed or injured, there is some chemical signal given off that tells the beetles that a tree is vulnerable to a successful attack. Such trees could be trees that are injured (broken branches), or low moisture. The trees don't give off these signals on purpose; it's just sort of like being sick. When a person is sick or injured, people can tell: the sick person might be pale or move slowly, or may have a fever. When a tree is sick or injured, the beetles can figure this out by the chemical signals from the tree.
So what I want to learn from this is how might different land management strategies and actions might affect recruitment of these beetles into a forested area… in other words, does the way a certain forest is managed affect where one would find larger or smaller populations of the Ips beetle, and how does this affect the population of trees in the area? For example, one management practice is to thin a forest by cutting trees, or shredding certain trees during certain times of the year. Again, if the trees are cut or injured, they give off chemical signals that say "I am cut, or I am injured", and this attracts beetles during certain times of the year. What I want to know is if the beetles are more likely to be attracted to these chemical signals, and will they attack other healthy trees as a result. Also, does the time of year when the forest is treated affect whether or not the Ips will be attracted? I would like to compare this to a management practice that has little or no thinning of trees in a forest.
Another interest of mine is assisting in research on white pine blister rust, which is an exotic fungus that affects limber and bristlecone pines. This fungus has recently been found in limber and bristlecone pines here in our mountains. These trees are special in that some are over a thousand years old. Because the fungus is exotic, the native trees have not developed an effective means of resistance to it. So, when one of our trees gets infected with white pine blister rust, it is always fatal, but it can be many years before the tree actually dies.
We're interested in finding out how widespread the blister rust is, how and where the blister rust got here, and what possible management strategies we can research and develop in order to help the trees survive.
During the spring of 2005, I was involved with some researchers from Colorado State University and the Forest Service in testing different management techniques to prolong the life of the trees that have blister rust. This work involved pruning (cutting off) branches of the trees that have the rust. If the rust can be removed from the tree, the tree will survive. Part of the blister rust's natural history is that it needs live tree tissue in order to reproduce. If the branch that contains the blister rust it is cut from the tree, the blister rust cannot complete its life cycle.
However, pruning the trees alone does not mean that the tree will ultimately survive. Another part of the blister rust's natural history is that it needs two hosts to continue its life cycle. One host is the limber or bristlecone pine tree. When the fungal spores have matured on a tree, they become a type of spore that will only infect currant shrubs. So, they will blow away and attach to a currant shrub, but curiously enough, it does not kill the shrub. So the fungus will then mature on the shrubs and produce a type of spore that will only infect pine trees, so it will blow away and infect the pine trees again. So, really, now that the blister rust is in the system, it is probably there forever. What the researchers want to do is prolong the life of the trees until another management strategy can be found that will give a higher percentage of trees resistance to the rust. The pruning strategy is temporary, at best. Over the next several years, we will revisit these trees to see if they are surviving, if they have been reinfected by blister rust, and if they are infected or reinfected, how long might they survive before they succumb to the rust, and might some trees actually have resistance to the rust. Maybe also during that time frame, other management strategies will be developed that can be used to infer resistance to the trees to defend themselves against the rust.
While I was getting my bachelor's degree at Colorado State University, I was studying biology that was mostly related to laboratory work in the medical and veterinary professions. When I completed my coursework, I decided that I really didn't want to work in a laboratory. I wanted to be outside. So, I looked for internships or jobs that would allow me to do that and were related to conservation biology. I found an internship through The Nature Conservancy and the Colorado Natural Heritage Program (CNHP) at Colorado State University. It was an opportunity for ethnic minorities to engage in this type of work. So I applied, they hired me, and I found that I loved it. What got me started on insects was that this same internship involved doing a rare butterfly inventory in the foothills along the Colorado Front Range. That internship lasted four months. After that, they hired me on as a part of their permanent staff. I stayed there for 4 ½ years before I pursued my master's degree in entomology (study of insects). Because of my work with the CNHP, I became very interested in insects and their natural histories. I find that I like working with insects because there is so much that is unknown or uncertain about this group of animals, and their natural histories are very fascinating.
Many people think that insects are not very important or are a nuisance, but I've learned that they are very important! There is still a great deal to be learned about insects, and how they are essential to larger ecological processes. Insects are really the key many ecological processes, such as pollination, recycling nutrients, and how en masse they can change landscapes. Many of the favorite or important food crops (such as oranges, tomatoes, apples) on which we rely would not exist if not for the pollination services of bees and other insects. Many insects which are not visible and live just under the surface of the soil are primarily responsible for recycling nutrients from dead plants and animals to make them available for the next generation of plants and animals. A large die-off of conifers in a forested area due to a beetle kill could result in a change, not only in the appearance of a landscape, but the type of habitat which exists in that area. It could perhaps result in a grassland or shrub habitat to replace the forested area… it is an effect kind of like fire, but slower, and probably not so damaging to the properties of the soils. Insects can have really significant effects on an ecosystem and it is fascinating to learn about that.