Graduate student collects stink bugs for research

After tweeting to the public about stink bug breakouts, fourth-year graduate student John Aigner received an overwhelming response.

While Blacksburg residents are usually happy to rid their homes of the brown marmorated stink bug, Aigner’s role has not been an exterminator so much as a researcher.

“We do a lot of experiments in the wintertime but we were not able to provide the manpower to collect bugs in the fall,” said Aigner, a Ph.D. student in the entomology department. “We turned to social media for the first time this year to recruit people in the New River Valley and get their stink bugs in the lab.”

The entomology department performs different studies on the stink bug from how they affect fruit trees, wine grapes or tomatoes, to their overpopulation in houses during the winter.

Virginia Tech houses its own colony of stink bugs, but finding a large quantity of bugs in one area is not always easy. Researchers wanted to increase their colony numbers.

“As the population (of stink bugs) increased and started spreading, we had an invasive pest that no one knew anything about,” said Thomas Kuhar, an entomology professor and primary researcher of stink bugs. “Suddenly we have a tremendous household nuisance and agricultural threat.”

The bugs became infamous when people started discovering them in their houses and believing that their houses were infested. However, the stink bugs do not tend to breed in houses - they just sleep there for winter and tend to wake up earlier than they would if they were in the wild.

Along with researching the different agricultural impacts that the species has, the entomology department has the opportunity to work with homeowners. Working inside homes, Aigner was able to develop a stink bug trap that was 14 times more effective than other commercialized traps. The trap consists of an aluminum pan, water, dawn soap and a desk lamp with an omnidirectional light bulb.

“This is the most popular insect I have ever worked with,” Kuhar said. “A lot of people are interested because of their personal connection to them.”

Whether it has been through helping farmers with pest management or helping homeowners control the nuisance, their research has incorporated more than just discovering how the bugs affect commodities.

“The variety is so widespread and the research I do is directly related to real world questions,” Aigner said. “I get to address those problems through extension talks and outreach, and all the effort I put in gets to help someone and that makes it all worth it.”

Currently, Kuhar is working on finding more effective pesticide practices that are less harmful than the current pesticides, as well as helping farmers to find the best method for managing their pests.