 "Photo: Jeff McWhorter")
A team of researchers led by UT professor Larry Gilbert is in the early stages of breeding millions of wasps to control a grass species clogging waterways around the Rio Grande River and Central Texas.
The project is part of an investigation conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture into methods of controlling an invasive species of giant cane grass native to the Mediterranean that was introduced to the U.S. in the 1820s, according to the department's Web site.
Researchers from the Department of Agriculture discovered the wasps' possible use as a controlling agent for the grass while doing surveys along the Rio Grande River. The wasps lay their eggs in the grass, and the eggs then eat away at the tissue in the grass stem and stunt its growth.
"The main concern right now is that this thing is just choking parts of the Rio Grande drainage on the border, particularly up into the tributaries, many of which have endangered fish species," Gilbert said. "It's really sucking up water and changing the environment for species that are endangered."
The grass is considered an invasive species, or a species transferred from its original environment into a new one without predators that would normally control its growth, Gilbert said.
He said chemical treatments could not be used on the cane grass because of its location in a waterway. Mechanical control, involving the use of large shredders pulled by tractors, has failed in the past because of its inability to reach the cane's large underground root.
Gilbert said the Brackenridge Field Lab, a research lab located on the Brackenridge Tract, received a grant from the Department of Agriculture in April and the first batch of wasps was hatched in the summer. Cameron Siddins, a recent graduate of St. Edward's University, was chosen from a group of several applicants to conduct the work of breeding the wasps, but Gilbert said he imagines there will be opportunities for independent research and internships as the research progresses.
Gilbert said UT is not generally known for its applied research in agriculture, but he was intrigued when the Department of Agriculture contacted the Brackenridge Field Lab about becoming involved in the project.
"One thing we like to do at the BFL is expose undergraduate students to real world problems," Gilbert said. "We already have kind of a tradition trying to deal with invasive organisms in an ecological way."
He cited the field lab's past work on an invasive species of red fire ants. Gilbert said research in both cases focuses on using an understanding of ecology and natural history to relieve natural organisms from invasive species.
Gilbert said once the mass breeding of the wasps is complete, he expects researchers from the Department of Agriculture to drop pieces of the grass infected with the wasp larva into uninfected grass along the Rio Grande.
"What you want do do is be able to multiply everything many times each generation," Gilbert said. "It doesn't take many months until you have millions. That's our goal: to really produce millions of these things."
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