#Repost @dennis.scheuer with @get_repost ・・・ Linn Run . . . Headed across #rt30 I decided to stop at #LinnRunStatePark and #adamfalls . The run was crystal clear and tumbled through the gully with palpable tranquility. I am grateful for the events leading to every new experience. I love The Lincoln Highway. Cheers everyone . . . #nature #raw_allnature #pacollective #pennlive #keystonemade #naturalpennsylvania #pennsylvania #padcnr #ig_color #ig_vision #ig_shotz #statepark #pennsylvaniaisbeautiful #pennsylvania_life #pennsylvania_wild #pennsylvania_igers #forest #hemlock #creek #gorge https://www.instagram.com/p/BsVmOZ2H4OA/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1qz0a775d497k
so i wanted to draw jason with glowing green eyes (because apparently people with glowing green eyes are my thing ok?) and it evolved in some sort of AU where everything is the same except he also has kickass Poison Ivy powers, sue me
Lieutenant Heathridge arrives before blows are landed… But is this crisis-averted or catharsis-averted? Stay tuned, because even as the chapter concludes, you can rest assured the trouble hasn’t… Catch the last page of Avania, chapter 14 next Sunday night!
Lieutenant Heathridge arrives before blows are landed… But is this crisis-averted or catharsis-averted? Stay tuned, because even as the chapter concludes, you can rest assured the trouble hasn’t… Catch the last page of Avania, chapter 14 next Sunday night!
Doodling to try to get back in the swing of it. Drawing is hard when you don’t practice regularly! Hemlock (belongs to @vultjag ) on the left, my girl vesta on the right
Hemlock trees in Connecticut have been having a tough go of it thanks, in part, to a small sap-sucking insect: the hemlock woolly adelgid.
First identified in Connecticut in the 1980s, this invasive Japanese insect eats through conifer trees and has contributed to die-offs of native conifers like the Eastern hemlock (pictured above with a woolly adelgid infestation).
But Carole Cheah with the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station said something might finally be causing adelgids to die off: all this cold weather.
“I have been looking for adelgids since the summer,” Cheah said. “I have been hardly able to find any adelgids at all. Even in places where I used to be able to collect adelgids.”
For years, Cheah’s been going out to look for adelgids all over Connecticut.
Woolly adelgids are active during more mild parts of the season, when temperatures are in the 30-to-40-degree Fahrenheit range.
(Slide-mounted HWA adult (left) and developing HWA (right))
But through years of sampling, Cheah said she’s found extreme winter temperature drops (at least -11 F in the northwest corner, -8 F in central Connecticut, or -6 F along the shore) are killing massive numbers (more than 90 percent) of adelgid populations.
So are successive days of sub-zero temperatures.
“My feeling is that, at least with regard to the adelgid, we no longer have such a serious threat as we had just a decade ago,” Cheah said. “I feel very optimistic about the future for our eastern hemlocks.”
But Cheah cautioned it’s a tempered optimism.
Hemlocks are susceptible to drought, which notably impacted the state in 2016 and 2017.
Cheah also said increased snowfalls could actually insulate surviving adelgids, helping them to ride out extreme winter weather.
Meanwhile, northwestern adelgid populations appear to be developing some cold-resistance, and urban “heat islands” could warm up adelgids in more developed portions of the state.
Then there’s another, more cold-tolerant, insect, which may be taking the adlegid’s place: the elongate hemlock scale.
“We should not take our eye off the [elongate hemlock] scale, because that is not going to be as impacted by the winters,” Cheah said. “Even though the hemlock woolly adelgid may have lessened its impact on the hemlocks, I believe the scale needs to be further researched and is definitely impacting them now.”
(Image Credits: Scott M Salom, Virginia Tech / U.S. Department Of Agriculture & Nathan Havill / USDA Forest Service)
