Beetles take on invasive marsh plants.

Byline: Sandy Quadros Bowles

WESTBORO - Fifteen-year-old Elizabeth Anderson sums up the purple loosestrife situation in seven succinct words:

"It's pretty, but it shouldn't be here.''

She is one of a group of Westboro residents who have joined forces to reduce the local purple loosestrife population through a project overseen by the Westboro Community Land Trust.

These volunteers, including students in Anita Lott's environmental science class at Westboro High School, are raising and then releasing galerucella, commonly known as purple loosestrife beetles. These beetles prey on the beautiful but destructive plant.

Purple loosestrife is a plant native to Europe and Asia that arrived in the United States in the early 1800s in the ballast of ships and from settlers who used the plant for ornamental reasons.

The plant adapts easily to natural and disturbed wetlands. As it spreads, the plant crowds out native grasses, sedges and other flowering plants.

Cattails, for example, once common sights in area wetlands, have been crowded out in large numbers by the purple loosestrife.

Inspired by a Telegram & Gazette story about a similar program in Uxbridge, land trust members reached out to Ms. Lotti's class for help in raising the beetles.

The class eagerly took on the project, Ms. Lotti said. "It was a really good fit with our goal of reaching out to the community,'' she said. "I want them to know that their actions do mean something, they can make a difference.''

In the spring, Ms. Lotti and the students dug up 12 purple loosestrife plants from designated areas in Westboro, potted them and placed them in the school's greenhouse. To simulate wetlands conditions, they placed the pots in child-sized plastic pools half-filled with water.

The plants developed so quickly "you could watch them grow,'' Ms. Lotti said with a laugh. "It was crazy.''

As the plants grew, the students received packets of the beetles, which were ordered through the state wetlands restoration project.

The students placed the beetles on the potted plants, which were then covered with netting. Fifteen beetles were placed on each plants.

Ms. Lotti's class kept track of the beetles and plants throughout the remainder of the school year. Then they were moved for part of the summer to Elizabeth's backyard, where she and her mother, Janet Anderson, a land trust volunteer, took care of them.

Elizabeth is working on the project to earn her Gold Award, the highest honor in Girl Scouting. She belongs to Senior Girl Scout Troop 30195 in Westboro.

Maintaining the beetle-laden plants proved more challenging outdoors than in a greenhouse, Ms. Anderson said. The rainy summer meant she had to dump water out of the pool more often than she had to refill it. And windy days caused the plants to topple over.

The beetles were released at the height of the purple loosestrife bloom season, in late July to early August, into predetermined areas of town where the plants had proliferated.

The beetles will not stay above ground long, Ms. Reid said. As the weather cools, the beetles move underground. During the winter they hibernate, emerging in spring to lay eggs, which produce hungry spring larvae.

The larvae eat the plants. They prefer the bud tips to the leaves that the adults eat.

These insects, the land trust members hope, will seriously damage the plants in the spring. Then the cycle will repeat itself next year, with beetles raised in the spring, released in the summer, dormant through the winter, then emerging again as larvae in the spring.

Ms. Lott's class will measure the effectiveness of the program by setting up four separate areas and determining how much of the area is filled with native species and how much with purple loosestrife.

Then they will re-measure the next fall, to determine how much change has occurred.

Annie Reid, a land trust volunteer, hopes the project will "get the students and their parents and even our own members more aware of the environment and our relationship with the environment. Things can be done.''

The students will not be able to rid the town of its entire purple loosestrife population, Ms. Lotti said. But they can help "get the balance back'' in the area they are working in.

She teaches her students that improving the environment starts by doing "little things that can make a big difference.''

Ms. Anderson agrees. "We're raising the next generation of environmentalists.''

To volunteer or learn more about this project and other activities of the Westboro Community Land Trust, visit www.westboroughlandtrust.org.

ART: PHOTOS

PHOTOG: (1) GARY KESSLER; (2, 3 AND 4) SUBMITTED PHOTO; (5 AND 6) T&G Staff/CHRISTINE PETERSON

CUTLINE: (1) A beetle-raising operation with potted loosestrife plants covered with netting in a plastic wading pool to simulate a wetland. (2) At right, a cattail march being taken over by purple loosestrife at the Mass Fish & Wildlife Westboro Management Area. (3) At right, Galerucella caterpillar in its larval stage, about one-quarter inch long. (4) Below, a full-grown Galerucella beetle. (5) Above, Westboro High School students join Westboro Community Land Trust volunteer efforts to combat the invasive purple loosestrife plants. Discussing the project recently are, from left, Annie Reid, science teacher Anita Lotti, Janet Anderson and WHS student Elizabeth Anderson. (6) Top inset: WCLT volunteer Debbie Okita and her son Craig Okita releasing Galerucella beetles at the same purple loosestrife-infested cattail marsh.