The hunt is over - for now!
A set of fungus-killed leafhoppers are on their way to @lovettbr, overnight delivery. I'm really looking forward to hearing what Dr. Brian Lovett and the folks in the Kasson Laboratory at West Virginia University are able to learn with them!
I was relieved to find specimens. My initial sightings of the outbreak were on Oct 11. When I posted those observations Oct 13, @malisaspring quickly tagged in @lovettbr (98116877) and quite a process began.
I called Butler County Metroparks and learned that they require a permit for specimen collection. Download the form, fill it out, print, sign, scan, email back... and they have 30 days to respond! I was able to get the request in on Oct 14, communicating the urgency and purpose in the email subject line just as I had in the initial call. (My 34 year engineering career paid off there.) Butler County's Amy Pellman managed to shepherd the request through in 7 days vs. 30. It's good until Nov 25, so if additional specimens are needed we have a bit of time yet.
Oct 21, permit in hand, I got sick. Arrgh! So the hunt didn't begin until Oct 23 - 12 days after the initial sighting. But as Brian predicted, the outbreak was still in progress. (I feel just a little guilty being happy about that; the leafhoppers surely aren't.)
Hunt day 1 brought 4 late-stage specimens; day 2 revealed 5 more specimens including earlier stages. To my engineering eyes, it appeared that there might be up to 3 different species of leafhoppers involved. (Brian's entomologist eyes will know better.) That could be interesting because apparently these fungi can be fairly species-specific. There were certainly other types of plant bugs - planthoppers (99181203), spittlebugs (99419325), etc. - on the same plants but not closely related, and no sign that they were affected.
Also interesting was that I only found specimens in one pretty small area. On Day 1, not wanting to literally walk by opportunities, I scoured the park from entry on in and found nothing until I reached that area. (On Day 2 I was sneaking in between storms and just headed straight to the hot zone.) What makes that spot special, I don't know. Topography, geology, the plants growing there, sun/ shade, proximity to the construction going on in the park...? There are too many variables and I know too little about these insects and their fungus.
This all illustrates why iNaturalist is so special: the connectedness of the community. Without @malisaspring, Dr. Lovett wouldn't get these specimens and I wouldn't get to learn about this phenomenon.
Thank you, MaLisa and Brian, for the opportunity to be part of this!
PS: Bonus - I noticed a tiny critter under one of the specimens (99178816) and got to learn from @ryneboi about springtails eating fungi. The connections keep growing, not unlike the web of life.
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Awesome! And 30 days is a quick turn around for a park, let alone 7. I've waited over 7 months for some of my permits (at which point, the field season was over).
Finding them only in one spot is probably due to the outbreak happening there. The spores probably don't travel that far that quickly and it probably needs to be pretty moist for the spores to stick and infect them? I defer to Brian on that one.
Now that @lovettbr has specimens in hand, it appears that I may have been fooled by sexual dimorphism - there may be only one species of hopper involved in the outbreak. That wouldn't be unusual, so I'm not disappointed. Very much looking forward to finding out more about the hoppers and their fungus!
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