This is a story of China and the United States joining forces to save the American tree. In the face of the United States' appeal, Chinese experts have unreservedly contributed their own patented biocontrol technology. In the end, the affected forests were saved and the ecological security of the United States was protected.
"The world is like a big garden, it needs a hundred flowers to bloom, China and the United States, who can not be separated from whom, the relationship between the two sides, only by supporting each other and helping each other, can we form a beautiful world of thousands of purples and reds." Yang Zhongqi, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, counselor of the State Council, chief expert of the Chinese Academy of Forestry, and a well-known expert in the prevention and control of forest diseases and insect pests in the country, said.
At the foot of The West Mountain in Beijing, the Chinese Academy of Forestry is lined with trees. An ordinary scientific research building is filled with specimen boxes, which is Professor Yang Zhongqi's studio.
As a result of "treating insects" to the United States, Yang Zhongqi, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, counselor of the State Council, chief scientist of the Chinese Academy of Forestry, and a well-known expert in the prevention and control of forest diseases and insect pests in the country, has recently become the focus of attention!
01
Start with the elimination of the "American White Moth"
The people who give the United States "cure bugs" are, first of all, the people who "cure American bugs."
△ American white moth
Presumably, everyone is still unfamiliar with the "American white moth" listed in the "First Batch of Invasive Alien Species" by China? However, this moth, native to the United States, has become a worldwide quarantine pest and a global invasive species, which can cause serious harm to more than 200 kinds of plants such as fruit trees, street trees, ornamental trees, forest trees, weeds, flowers, and crops, especially broad-leaved trees. Where the American white moth passes, it can be said that there are no leaves left; when it is severe, it is as if it has been burned by fire, so it is called "smokeless fire".
"The American white moth was introduced to the Dandong area of Liaoning Province in China around 1979, possibly with the import of wood. In the north of China alone, there are 49 families, 108 genera and 175 species of plants that can be harmed by the American white moth, including almost all the forest trees, fruit trees, garden plants and flowers, vegetables, crops and a variety of herbaceous plants that we cultivate, which is difficult to completely control. Professor Yang Zhongqi said.
The American white moth is also subject to quarantine in most countries around the world. Since 1952, the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union have introduced 10 species of natural enemy insects from the United States and Canada, and carried out 15 years of research on the use of natural enemy insects to control american white moths, but finally failed.
"The main reason for the failure is that the introduced natural enemies lack a transfer host, and the American white moth alone cannot form a stable population in nature, and cannot achieve effective control over the American white moth." Inspired by the lessons of the past, Yang Zhongqi changed his mind, and he positioned the strategy of controlling the domestic American white moth to find natural enemies at home.
After more than ten years of investigation and research, Yang Zhongqi found that the American white moth has 32 kinds of natural enemies in China, of which 12 are new species, he named and published them, and screened out the superior natural enemy of biological control of the American white moth - "white moth Zhou's little bee", and conquered the problem of large-scale artificial breeding of natural enemies, researched a set of pollution-free use of natural enemies to control the American white moth, and solved the problem of pollution-free and pollution-free prevention and control of american white moth in China. It has explored a new path for the complete use of biological control technology for urban gardens and forest trees in China to control pests, and has also made important contributions to the successful hosting of the Olympic Games in 2008 and the realization of the goal of the "Green Olympics".
This patented technology won the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award in 2006 for Yang Zhongqi and others. After winning the award, forestry experts from many countries came to discuss with Yang Zhongqi the introduction of the white moth Zhou's small bee to control the American white moth. Zhou's little bee also received the title of "Forest Guard".
However, many people find it strange: "Isn't this bee found by Yang Zhongqi, why is it not surnamed Yang, but surnamed Zhou?" ”
"This is in honor of my doctoral supervisor, Professor Zhou Yao, so I used his last name to name the new genus 'White Moth Zhou's Little Wasp', a new species of natural enemy insect. His influence on me is far-reaching, and I repay the teacher's kindness and thank the teacher for his education and training. Yang Zhongqi told reporters that Professor Zhou Yao is a famous entomologist in China and one of the founders of new Chinese entomology.
02
Save the American tree
Not only contributing to the health of China's urban gardens and forest trees, Chinese expert Yang Zhongqi and his "Yang" also staged a touching story of saving American trees in the United States.
△ Ash narrow gidding
Back in time, back at the beginning of the century, a wave of pests from Northeast Asia, the ash narrow gidding, invaded the United States. They burrow under the bark of the tree, causing the nutrient delivery tissue of the tree to be destroyed and the heroic ash tree to fall. Ash is the dominant tree species in American forests and is the preferred tree species for its urban landscaping.
The U.S. government's initial approach to control was to cut down one tree when found, cut it into wood chips, or burn it. It was later found that this method did not work, and the pest quickly spread to 35 states in the United States, and the loss was extremely heavy.
At that time, the ash narrow gidding became the number one major pest in the United States, and the United States was in a hurry!
According to the international classic theory of biological control, in the newly introduced area of pests, natural enemies must be introduced from their place of origin to base themselves on settlement in order to be effectively controlled. The United States first collaborated with South Korean and Japanese entomologists to study, but after several years of investigation and research was fruitless. The United States turned to our State Forestry Service for help.
In 2003, Yang Zhongqi was "ordered to be in danger" and received a project from the former State Forestry Administration for sino-US cooperative research and biological control of white ash narrow giding.
Yang Zhongqi understands that in order to control this hidden major pest in the United States, living and harming under the bark of trees, conventional methods of spraying chemical pesticides will not work, one pollutes the environment, and the other is that the agent cannot touch the insect body without effect, and must find and discover the natural enemies in nature to control this big pest according to the principle of "mutual resistance" in the biological world. He also knows how difficult it is to find and discover new species of natural enemies that can control major pests in nature, but he did not back down and led his research team to run through the forest areas of northeast China, Tianjin, and Shandong.
Everywhere they went, they dissected insect-infested trees in the forest. Bumping, going up the hill, looking for dead trees, observing, recording, not finding, keep looking...
After six or seven years, Yang Zhongqi and his research group could not dissect how many insects were infested with wood, and finally found 4 kinds of natural enemy insects that specialized in parasitic white ash narrow gidding: white ash gidding stalk bee, white ash gidding rattled wasp, white wax gidding swollen leg bee and white wax gidding egg jumping wasp. Some of them parasitize in pest eggs, some parasitize outside the body of pest larvae, some parasitize in the body of pest larvae, and some parasitize on the pupae of pests.
According to Dr. Wang Xiaoyi, these natural enemies can take the initiative and find the jiding that moths under the bark of the tree, and accurately locate the host, pierce the bark to lay their eggs into the body or body of the pest; or bite out a moth tunnel into the parasitic pest in the pest tunnel, within a week can eat the pest exhausted, and then breed a large number of their offspring, and then find the pest parasite, and finally achieve the effect of completely controlling the number and harm of the white ash narrow giding population.
Of these 4 natural enemies, 3 are new species named and published by Yang Zhongqi. "Take this slender ash gidding stalk cocoon bee, which occurs 3 to 4 generations a year, while its host ash narrow gidding only occurs 1 generation a year, and most of the year is the larval stage of the stalk cocoon wasp that can parasitize. As a result, it is able to continuously parasitize pests many times, thus achieving the effect of complete control of white ash narrow gidding. It is precisely because of the natural control of these natural enemies and the good resistance of the trees themselves that the white ash narrow gidding has not been a disaster. Yang Zhongqi explained.
Eventually, with the approval of the former State Forestry Administration, the natural enemy insects discovered by Professor Yang Zhongqi and his team were exported to the United States to help control the white ash narrow giding in the United States.
Pest control is a long process. In May 2019, U.S. experts came to the National Forestry and Grassland Administration for exchanges and cooperation, and they told Professor Yang Zhongqi that after years of cooperative governance, these natural enemies have now settled in 30 states in the United States, the release area of white ash narrow gidding has been effectively controlled, natural enemies continue to spread to the surrounding forest areas, and complete control of the most serious major pest in the history of the United States is just around the corner.
The research results and research work of Professor Yang Zhongqi and his team have also been highly recognized by the US Animal and Plant Quarantine Administration and the Forest Service, and its official website has written that Professor Yang Zhongqi has made great contributions to the control of white ash narrow gidding in the United States, and published these discoveries and achievements of Chinese scientists on his official website.
03
There is a new species in the world with the surname "Yang"
In 2006, the internationally renowned entomological journal "Yearbook of the Entomological Society of America", which has been founded for nearly 100 years, published an abstract of a paper by Professor Yang Zhongqi for the first time with Chinese. The paper describes the important natural enemy of the major forest pest white ash narrow giding for the first time, the new species of "white ash gidding stem ventral cocoon bee", which has found an effective natural enemy for the major international quarantine pest of white ash narrow gidding.
"Yang, you know what? Even forest entomologists in the United States publish a paper in this journal is not easy! After Yang Zhongqi published this paper as the first author and four other authors (3 well-known experts in the United States and 1 well-known expert in the Netherlands), he received sincere and warm congratulations from his international peers.
The Latin name "Spathius agrili Yang" of the "Ash Giding-stemmed Cocoon Bee" is "Yang".
"'Yang' records a story of Friendship between China and the United States." Professor Yang Zhongqi said that this is also an inseparable witness to Sino-US technical cooperation.
In Professor Yang's studio, the reporter saw a full of exquisite small boxes, which were full of insect specimens from nature. In the drawer under the specimen cabinet is a thick stack of honorary certificates.
A few copies of the book are proof that the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUF) awarded him the "IUF Scientific Achievement Award" in 1995; there are more than 10 national, provincial and ministerial awards for scientific and technological progress.
Although these certificates are speechless, they faithfully record Professor Yang Zhongqi's outstanding contributions to biological control. It was also through the certificate that I learned that Professor Yang Zhongqi is one of the 73 world-renowned forestry scientists recognized by the International Forestry Federation in the past 130 years since its establishment, and is also the first person in China to win this World Forestry Award.
"Why I agree to show these honors, because this represents the recognition of China's biological control technology by international authoritative institutions, and it is also the fruitful fruit of our country's respect for nature conservation and the idea of the unity of nature and man in the field of science and technology." Professor Yang Zhongqi said proudly.
Reporter: Gao Zhimin
EDIT: Mo Shuo
Review: Jiajia Zhou