North to the future... of sawflies and wasps

摘要

To outsmart Alaska's notorious mosquitoes, graduate student Chris MacQuarrie heads out early. By 7:30 a.m. one mid-July day (which is, effectively, still spring this far north), we are at his first study site -- a tree near the sixth hole at Anchorage's Russian Jack Springs Park golf course. The bloodsuckers are out of sight, but another insect has gotten the jump on us. Just about every leaf on the birch tree is mottled with brown. The blotches are a telltale sign that sawflies arc here.