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A new forest health champion at Virginia Tech

Max Esterhuizen

15 Jan 2025

Carrie Fearer

Just 16 short months ago, Carrie Fearer stepped onto Virginia Tech’s Blacksburg campus, ready to make her mark. Now, she’s not just a faculty member in the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation, but also a driving force in the College of Natural Resources and Environment’s conservation efforts.

Fearer’s passion for forest health is palpable. Her journey began at the Ohio State University, where she earned her undergraduate, master’s, and Ph.D. degrees. Postdoctoral stints at Purdue and the University of New Hampshire followed, but it was Virginia Tech that captured her heart. “It was the perfect scenario,” Fearer said. “The people, the collaborative nature, the culture — it was a wonderful opportunity.”

Since arriving in August 2023, Fearer has been anything but idle. She quickly became involved in the Invasive Species Collaborative, a role that led to a position on the steering committee. Her grant-writing expertise secured funding for projects on the invasive tree-of-heaven and the autumn olive.

Fearer’s impact extends beyond research. She’s also a mentor to two graduate students, one of whom recently celebrated their first published manuscript. And she’s co-teaching a senior-level course on forest and tree pest management.

Fearer’s vision doesn’t stop there. A new USDA Higher Education Challenge Grant will allow her to develop a forest health curriculum for non-majors, complete with virtual reality headsets for immersive learning experiences.

“I want to expose students to national and global forest health issues,” Fearer said. “I’d like to use the headsets to put them in different forests and see health effects that we can’t see here.”

Fearer’s dedication to conservation, her collaborative spirit, and her passion for teaching make her a valuable asset to Virginia Tech. In a little more than a year, she established herself as a leader, a mentor, and an innovator.

The devilishly invasive tree-of-heaven

The tree-of-heaven, a plant with Asian origin, grows quickly in natural areas and backyards, taking over habitats intended for native species. These ecosystem impacts go far beyond that of just plants.

Looking toward the sky with tree trunks and leaves all around. — By reducing the food source of the spotted lanternfly, this project on the tree-of-heaven could also help reduce the insect’s population as well.

It’s also the native host to the invasive and destructive spotted lanternfly, a visually striking insect that colonizes quickly and destroys just as fast.

The goal of the grant is to develop a native fungus as a biocontrol for the invasive tree of heaven. Researchers are investigating whether the spotted lanternfly could help transmit the fungus from tree to tree, reducing the need for human intervention. The research team is also testing other pathogens and pests that could control the tree-of-heaven and prevent the spotted lanternfly from spreading into vineyards.

“The ideal scenario is that humans inoculate a tree with the fungus, and the spotted lanternfly, through its cluster feeding, picks up the fungus,” Fearer said. “Then the fungus could be transmitted to another healthy tree-of-heaven through the spotted lanternfly’s feeding or by spores on the insect’s body.”

By reducing the food source of the spotted lanternfly, this project could also help reduce the insect’s population as well.

The invasive autumn olive

Almost a ubiquitous presence in landscapes across Southwest Virginia, the invasive autumn olive thrives.

But it’s not supposed to be here.

A man at the edge of a field clearing and a wooded area — Chris Fields-Johnson stands next to the invasive autumn olive.

Autumn olive is known for its nitrogen-fixing ability, allowing it to thrive in poor soils and outcompete native plants. The shrub’s berries are edible, rich in antioxidants like lycopene, and have a tart-sweet flavor. While its berries are beneficial for wildlife, the plant’s aggressive spread disrupts local ecosystems, reducing biodiversity.

With a one-year grant from the Powell River Project, located in Wise County, Virginia, Virginia Tech researchers are studying a native fungus that potentially could kill the autumn olive with minimal human interaction.

“What we’re doing is the first step to confirm what’s actually happening to the autumn olives with this fungus,” Fearer said. “What we’re doing is called Koch’s Postulates, which is proving the pathogenicity of the fungus.”

There are no known pathogens that target the autumn olive. Depending on the outcome of the testing of the fungus, the researchers hope that this could lead to a biocontrol method for the invasive plant.