This is the third part in a lecture series hosted by the Fairbanks Museum. The workshop will be held at a single site. Attendees will meet at the site. The field workshop will begin after a brief introduction. The workshop runs from 9:00am - 4:00pm, with lunch from 12-1pm. Please contact the Fairbanks Museum to RSVP. 802-748-2372

This workshop will look at the identification, ecology and impacts of insects in a variety of forested habitats. The goal is so attendees will learn to identify insects that are common to the north woods, understand the ecological role of various insect guilds, and assessment of insect populations which impact management objectives. The workshop will include at least the following areas of discussion, and encompass hardwood and softwood forest types.

• Defoliators and their impact: Forest tent caterpillar, maple leaf cutter, maple trumpet skeletonizer, birch leaf miners
• Bark and wood insects: Scolytids, Sawyers, Sugar maple borer
• Decomposers and Detritivores: Fungal-insect interactions, soil biology, wood deterioration
• Exotic pests: Beech scale/beech bark disease and balsam woolly adelgid

Matt Ayres, Professor of Biological Sciences, Chair Graduate Program in Ecology, Evolution, Ecosystems & Society, Associate Director Institute of Arctic Studies in the Dickey Center for International Understanding.  Matt Ayres is a Professor of Biological Science at Dartmouth College, where he offers courses in Ecology and The Nature and Practice of Science. He is Chair of Dartmouth’s graduate program in Ecology, Evolution, Ecosystems & Society, and Associate Director of the Institute of Arctic Studies in the Dickey Center for International Understanding. His degrees include a B.S. and M.S. in Biology from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a Ph.D. in Entomology from Michigan State. Prior to coming to Dartmouth, Matt was a Fulbright Fellow in Finland and a Research Scientist with the USDA Forest Service in Lousiana. Matt has been studying forest insects for over 30 years, especially those that sometime kill trees and change forests.

Liz Studer is a PhD candidate focusing on entomology at the Ecology, Evolution, Ecosystems & Society Program at Dartmouth. She has undergrad degrees in Ecology and Anthropology at the University of Colorado and completed her Master’s Degree in Entomology at the University of Georgia. She is conducting research in the Hubbard Brooke experimental forest as part of a broad-scale biodiversity project examining the  dynamics between invertebrates in green and brown food-webs.

Dave Houston retired from the US Forest Service Northeastern Forest Experiment Station following a career as Principal Plant Pathologist studying diebacks and declines. He is consulted worldwide for his expertise on beech bark disease, maple decline, the impact of defoliators, sapstreak disease, and other forest health topics. He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin studying causes of maple blight, and was an exchange scientist with the British Forestry Exchange.

See the Fairbanks Museum Calendar for more details.