Deer exclosures at Ashland University preserves a collaborative project
As Stephanie Pflaum returned from scouting out the next spot for a deer exclosure at one of Ashland University’s nature preserves, she asked if anyone saw a lady bug in her hair.
She wasn’t panicked about it like most people would be with bugs; she just wanted to find it.
“It flew in, but I don’t know where it went; do you happen to see it anywhere?” the senior student asked the rest of the group from AU putting up deer exclosures in the university’s Stoffer Nature Preserve just outside of Ashland on an unseasonably beautiful day in late October.
While the lady bug wasn’t found, Pflaum said she’s starting to realize that bugs have just been finding her since she came to Ashland University – and she has been loving it.
The past two summers, Pflaum has had internships with the Ohio State Entomology Department and, this year at AU, she is one of two research students involved in this deer exclosures project for Assistant Professor Cindy Perkovich, Ph.D.
Perkovich is leading AU’s part of a collaborative study with Kent State University that will look at how insects and plants do without deer; hence, the deer exclosures, which were funded by Kent State.
Exclosures also have been placed in another AU nature preserve: Dayspring in Coshocton County. Six exclosures were placed in each preserve.
“We’re putting up deer exclosures because deer are a big problem around here and everywhere,” said Perkovich, whose areas of specialties are plant-insect ecology, chemical ecology, biological statistics, integrated pest management and entomology (the study of insects). “What we’re finding ecologically is that there are too many deer and the ecosystems are suffering from them.”
The study should be valuable to aboretums and parks that are seeing a decline in their biodiversities.
Three AU students help put up the deer exclosures
The insect aspect of the project was the main reason Pflaum; Laney Frary, Perkovich’s other research student; and a student in her Entomology Class, Connin Som, were working on the deer exclosures, which are all 5 meters long, 5 meters wide and 7 feet high wire structures.
“I bribe my entomology class to help with this,” Perkovich said about Som’s participation. “They’re getting bugs out of this and they get excused from a quiz.”
Her entomology students are required to collect 60 different insect species.
While she wasn’t able to collect the lady bug from her hair, Pflaum did find a cucumber beetle – not in her hair, but in the preserve – that she calmly and proudly showed to the group.
Pflaum, a biology and environmental science major, wants to pursue a career in entomology research. This semester she is focusing on a research project sorting through two decades worth of beetle species with Perkovich’s help. The deer exclosure project will be her research focus for next semester.
“In the deer exclosures, we’re going to do preliminary surveys of what plants are here and what insect communities we can find,” Perkovich said. “And then over time, we’re going to continue sampling and see how the plants and the insect communities change. We’re also interested in the chemical ecology of it.”
That’s where Frary, a junior toxicology major, comes in – for the chemical ecology part.
“I like looking at the chemicals inside of insects,” Frary said. “(Perkovich) needed someone to do research. She’s more chemical entomology, so she pretty much adapts the research to my interests.
“So, the bugs do kind of choose you,” Frary added.
Like Pflaum, Frary is also working on another project with Perkovich’s help. That one is looking at the proteins and tannins with aphids for different kinds of trees in the south. She took a quick trip to Tennessee this summer with Perkovich to bring some tree and aphid samples from there to Ashland.
Tannins are a type of plant compound naturally found in foods and beverages, including wine, that humans like, but to insects they have an astringent, bitter taste, according to Perkovich.
Two of the students also working on other research projects
“A previous study of mine found that when deer feed on oaks, oaks defend themselves by producing tannins,” Perkovich said. “Most people don’t know that plants defend themselves, but a lot of compounds – like caffeine and nicotine – plants make to keep things from eating them.
“We have enzymes that can digest them, but insects have more problems digesting them,” Perkovich added about tannins. “So, when deer feed on them, an oak doesn’t know it’s deer feeding on them and it starts producing tannins, which don’t affect the deer.”
Perkovich’s previous study was for her doctorate at Kent State and was similar to what she is doing now. Because her Ph.D. advisor, Kent State Professor David Ward, liked the project and he had a new graduate student interested in studying deer, Perkovich said they decided to collaborate.
“We want to see if the same thing is happening here,” Perkovich said, comparing it to her previous study. “We want to see what the plants are producing based on the insects here. We also are going to look at the seed bank because deer eat of lot of acorns and seedlings.”
Inside exclosures, trees and plants are producing fewer tannins, so insects seem to have a greater diversity, according to Perkovich.
While putting up one of those exclosures at Stoffer Preserve, professor and students talked quite a bit about bugs, especially ones they saw.
Pflaum asked Perkovich if she knew what the tiny insects that kept landing on her were, not at all bothered by it, of course.
“I think they are some kind of weevil. This time of year, they fall out of the trees,” said Perkovich, who has a collection of bugs in her office, including termite colonies, as well as other bug-like creatures, such as a goliath bird-eating tarantula, tailless whip scorpions and other arthropods.
Deer exclosures to be checked quarterly
With the exclosures in place, Perkovich said the next step will be checking them quarterly for at least five years, which means she will have to eventually find research students to replace Pflaum and Frary, hoping “the bugs” find those future researchers as they did with Pflaum and Frary.
If the study works out the way she hopes it does, Perkovich will have to replace not just Pflaum and Frary but many research students. The bugs will be busy.
“I would like to upkeep these exclosures to do studies for decades,” Perkovich said. “It’s great for students to come out and do semester projects, ask ecological questions and learn the scientific method.”
