Illinois researchers crush and grind dead cicadas to collect data – NBC Chicago

The big cicada outbreak is over, but the study by researchers at the Morton Arboretum in Chicago’s western suburbs is just beginning.

“We just got a bunch of bags … and as you can see, they’re all essentially desiccated into little cicada pieces,” explained Marvin Lo, research program manager in the Morton Arboretum’s Root Biology Lab.

Lo and his team collected dead cicadas and prepared samples for their study.

“It could take five to 10 years to get some of this data because we’re trying to link many of these processes related to the cicadas to other events,” he said.

The program leader gave us an insight into their research in the laboratory to better understand our forest ecosystem and our cicadas.

“Maybe they like certain species more, certain tree species, than others, and we may be able to see that in some of our data,” he said. “We won’t know until we analyze it, but that’s one thing we’re looking into.”

Over the next few months, Lo said volunteers will help dry the samples and measure the cicadas’ biomass before they are ground and reduced to powder for further analysis.

“We are also studying how much nitrogen and carbon nutrients these cicadas return to the forest floor,” he said.

He added: “These cicadas have been feeding underground for 17 years. They feed on trees and plants and what happens – there’s suddenly a big burst of nutrients all at once and how does that affect the growth of our trees in the forest.”

Lo called the study fascinating and said there is so much more to learn about these insects now that they are gone.

“Maybe in 17 years we’ll even see a shift in the cicada population,” he said. “If we suddenly lost all the cicadas to disease or something like that, what would happen to our forest? We don’t know.”

He hopes the data will ultimately provide a clearer picture of the role cicadas play in our environment as they await their next emergence.

“Even though it looks like these cicadas could be a nuisance this year, they’re just loud and smelly,” Lo said. “Everything they do has a function and they could play a very important role in how everything in this ecosystem works.”