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Research Off the
Beaten Path
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Nepal is full of narrow winding
roads through extremely diverse
terrain. This road leads north
from Kathmandu towards Tibet.
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Since 1898, USDA
scientists have explored the far reaches of the world for valuable crop plants
and natural enemies to control pests. These trips—dozens each
year—are crucial. Some of our most important crop plants and successful
biological control programs have resulted from such forays.
The hope of new scientific discovery and the allure of foreign lands can
make exploration one of the most exciting and rewarding parts of a researcher's
career. Still, it's no vacation. To meet their goals, scientists face illness,
transportation rigors, cultural barriers, and even wild animals. |
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Left to right: Scientists Ray
Carruthers, Tom Dudley, and Tim
Widmer prepare for their journey.
Driver Bipin Khadgi (right) will
transport them to their next location.
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Last fall,
ARS entomologists Raymond I. Carruthers
and Alan A. Kirk, ARS plant pathologist Timothy L. Widmer, and University of
California ecologist Thomas L. Dudley spent 3 weeks in Nepal and India
searching for biological control agents that could help U. S. land managers
control some exotic pests here. These pests—giant reed (Arundo donax),
saltcedar (Tamarix), and pink hibiscus mealybug—are believed to have
originated on the Indian subcontinent, so the scientists expected to find
natural enemies there.
The journal below gives a brief glimpse of the challenges and successes of
an exploration. Carruthers leads the ARS Exotic and Invasive Weeds Research
Unit at the Western Regional Research Center in Albany, California. Kirk and
Widmer work at the ARS European Biological Control Laboratory in Montpellier,
France. Dudley works for the University of California, Berkeley. Unless
indicated, Carruthers wrote the following entries about the Nepal portion of
the trip. |
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PHOTOS PROVIDED BY
RAY CARRUTHERS
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Bumpy ride on the way
to the jungle.
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Day 1
After days of getting everything in order in the lab, I'm off and away. As
always, our original, well-organized itinerary was changed. This time it was an
unexpected weeklong religious holiday in Nepal. Most of the roads would've been
blocked with celebrations, and fuel would've been unavailable. We rescheduled
our flights, plans, and meetings. Thanks to Charles Myers and Michele Williams
of the ARS travel staff, my passport with visas showed up in time. |
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Male rhino protecting a calf.
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Day 4
Once in Nepal, we discovered that the American Embassy was considering
canceling our travel. Suspected terrorists were expected to cause significant
problems. Also, a general strike planned for later in the week would halt all
forms of transportation. We agreed to stay away from areas where the potential
threats were most severe.
Packed into a 30-year-old Toyota Corolla, we headed south out of Kathmandu. We
were like an ant among dinosaurs, weaving in and around bulging trucks, buses
with people hanging out the doors, and potholes larger than our car.
Kirk: Three blowouts on the way. I understand why the front passenger
seat is called the "suicide seat"! Those in the back seat explored
levels of cramp unfathomable before this trip. |
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Traffic jam en route to Kathmandu.
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Carruthers: We
headed off to the Royal Chitwan National Park to find Arundo donax in a
natural setting. There we were free to explore, even though the rest of the
country is on strike. Until now, we have only found Arundo in cultivated
situations in Nepal. The locals chop it down and use it for fencing, roofing,
insulation, and a million other things. Most of the insects that we have found
so far don't really seem to cause great damage. In the United States, hardly
anything feeds on Arundo—or is even found resting on it.
We made lots of plant collections for DNA analysis, pickled lots of bugs, and
collected detailed GPS [global positioning system] readings to mark our
locations. |
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Using an aspirator to collect
leaf-feeding insects on giant
reed, Arundo donax.
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Day 5
Today was quite a day! Up before dawn and along the river's edge by daybreak.
We (and our guides) entered a rather rustic-looking dugout canoe. The canoe was
first poled upstream and then, once well above our anticipated landing site,
was cut rapidly into the current. It was slow-going upstream in the still water
along the river's edge. But once we moved out into the mainstream, the action
was fast-moving and wet.
After the crossing, we headed into the heavily treed jungle. We were struck by
the quantity and size of the insect fauna. As we pushed our way through the
overgrown path into the jungle, we found exotic-looking insects everywhere.
There were hundreds of large, bright-red-and-black seed bugs crawling all over
the forest floor. A team of entomologists and ecologists could not have been
closer to heaven. We were not at all worried about the bugs. It was the rhinos
and tigers—the prized wildlife of this park—that we were keeping an
eye out for. |
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Hungry leeches ready to pounce.
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Trouble actually came in
a totally different form. Looking down—rather than out ahead of us—we
realized that our bodies were covered with leeches. Disgusting!!! As much as
the bugs were great, the leeches were unwelcome. Blood splotches began
appearing through our pants and socks.
Luckily, we didn't encounter any rhinos or tigers in the area that we explored
by foot. We did find Arundo and some close relatives and made some
excellent collections of plant material for genetic analysis and of insects
feeding on different parts of the plants. But we didn't find as much as we had
hoped for. We saw no insect natural enemy with the potential to devastate this
plant. |
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Dieback of giant reed from
caterpillars that bore into
the stem.
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After a lunch of fried
rice with eggs and peppers, we struck out to meet our elephant transport to
another area of the jungle. This trip would be farther than we could easily
walk, and we certainly expected to encounter rhinos on this segment of the
trip. Being on elephant back would be a definite advantage.
The ride was excruciatingly painful. I think the elephant that Tim and I shared
had one leg about a foot shorter than its others. The platform on which we and
our gear were perched rocked and rolled like a rowboat in 10-foot waves. But at
least we were above the leeches! |
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Alan Kirk (center) collects insect
specimens with other scientists by
cutting open stems in tall elephant
grass.
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As we progressed through
the jungle and grassland areas, we came across lots of different
Arundo-like grasses and some Arundo itself. We collected as
before, but we were still lacking significant natural enemies.
We did find rhinos. First, two large females taking a dip in a mud-filled pond.
Next, a large male rhino accompanying a young calf. It was obvious that we
needed to put some ground between ourselves and this fellow, so we didn't hang
around too long. |
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Ewww! Leeches leave their mark.
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Day 6
Based on our trip and on information from cooperators at Rampur University, we
headed back to Kathmandu. Dr. Dhurma Raj Dangol agreed to help us on our
project in the future and said he could arrange to survey the plants and
insects of interest during the year. This was just the type of assistance that
we were looking for.
Day 7
We searched the southwest side of Kathmandu for more natural enemies of all of
our target plants. Here we found Arundo attacked by armyworm-like
caterpillars. These larvae were eating the plant leaves, causing significant
defoliation. At first we were in hot water, since we found the damaged
Arundo growing along the border of a local woman's garden. She clearly
did not want weird foreigners around. But when we showed her the kira
(insects), she was very interested. Then, through sign language we discussed
many of the other insects that were problems in her garden. Eventually, we
found Bipin (our driver), and we were able to help her determine which insects
were pests and which she should not be concerned about. We made such good
friends, she would hardly let us leave. |
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Unidentified stem-boring beetle
larvae in giant reed.
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Day 8
Today we hit "Arundo gold" near the southeast corner of the
Kathmandu Valley. We were stopping for gas beyond the edge of town and spotted
some Arundo growing on a knoll behind the filling station. Knives in
hand, we trudged back though some cesspools and started splitting Arundo
stalks. We found a number of deformed plants with tip dieback. Lo and behold,
they were infested with large, stem-boring caterpillar larvae. Random checks
around the area showed many previously damaged stalks that were now dead. Many
still had live larvae feeding away. After an hour of collecting, we had
acquired quite a number of these insects and photographed their impact on the
Arundo plants. We described the collection site in fine detail, GPS'ed
the location so that we could easily relocate it, and then packed the specimens
for their return trip to USDA's quarantine facility in Montpellier.
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Caterpillar tunneling through giant reed,
Arundo donax.
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Day 10
The terrorists did indeed make a move—but not towards us. The Kathmandu
Post cited 14 killed, 40 injured, lots of money stolen, 19 inmates freed,
and many hostages taken during the night. Sounds like a good day to leave the
country.
Actually, Nepal has been an excellent host country for us. Many of the locals
volunteered to join in our insect hunts and always seemed to know just the
right spot to find the Arundo plants shown in our photos. Some of the local
children absolutely loved the idea of finding bugs and learning more about
their native environment. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them become famous
entomologists someday.
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Future entomologists in Nepal?
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Dhanyabad.
"Thanks," as they say it here!
The fruits of such an exploration may not be known for months. But even a few
potential biological control agents make the effort worthwhile. In Nepal and
India, the team collected 14 insect and pathogen species to evaluate against 5
plant and insect pests. They'll study them in quarantine to determine their
efficacy and safety. Friends and research partners they made while traveling
will help ARS continue the projects there for years to come.—By
Kathryn Barry
Stelljes, Agricultural Research Service Information Staff.
This research is part of Crop Protection and Quarantine, an ARS National
Program (#304) described on the World Wide Web at
http://www.nps.ars.usda.gov.
To reach scientists mentioned in this story, contact
Raymond I. Carruthers, USDA-ARS
Exotic and Invasive Weeds
Research Unit, 800 Buchanan St., Albany, CA 94707; phone (510) 559-6127,
fax (510) 559-6123. |
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"Research Off the Beaten Path"
was published in the April 2001 issue
of Agricultural Research magazine.
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