Spotted Lantern Fly

Do extreme cold temperatures affect the reproductive cycle of the Spotted Lantern Fly?

Will a winter storm kill off the egg masses of the Spotted Lantern Fly in the U.S.?

What kind of natural event needs to happen to kill the egg masses simultaneously?

are you asking these questions as part of a class assignment?

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No. Seeing as they were introduced to the Northeast from an extremely similar Chinese climate, which both experience winters, there’s no indication of any cold temperatures being able to greatly impact the cycle of the SLF. They’ve been introduced into the US since 2014 at least, if not 2012. With all the winters we’ve experienced, by now if something were going to do that, it would’ve happened. There’s no ‘natural event’ that could simultaneously kill off all egg masses in the U.S.

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I think extremely low temps can cause some egg mass die off? Fairly sure there was a paper that said that but I’d have to try and dig it up (and make sure it was testing egg masses with the eggs insulated and not like, the eggs taken out lol)
But obviously: yeah, lanternflies are adapted to a temperate climate since the eastern US and east asia are nearly identical in that regard

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Well, yeah, with cold enough temps you could kill anything, but we just don’t have consistent enough cold freezes to kill off enough SLF to make any sort of difference, unfortunately…

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Welcome to the forum! @ChrisFromMaine

Yeah, unless we somehow manage to eradicate ailanthus (which seems very, very unlikely given how ubiquitous it is) they’re here to stay.

Yes. I have a hypothesis.

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