![\"professor](\"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/forwisconsin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/378\/2013\/09\/UWL_TreeResBaines_300px.jpg\")
<\/a>They\u2019ve found success. When the introduced viruses, called hypoviruses, infect the blight fungus they reduce the fungus\u2019 ability to invade and kill the tree. Once the fungus is weakened, the tree uses its own defenses by producing a healing tissue to wall off the disease.<\/p>\n
Opportunity for researchers, students<\/strong><\/p>\n UW-L Assistant Professor of Biology Anita Baines knows the 50-acre grove of chestnuts in West Salem well. She conducted research there while a Michigan State graduate student before she returned in 2009 to teach organismal biology and plant microbe interactions in UW-L\u2019s prestigious Biology Department.<\/p>\n Today, Baines is participating in a $5,000 annual research grant spanning three years from the American Chestnut Foundation. This most recent grant brought the total for the Coulee Region research project among the three institutions to $50,000.<\/p>\n Baines says the goal is to recreate what has occurred naturally in Europe and parts of Michigan \u2014 controlling the chestnut blight fungus by introducing a hypovirus that infects the fungus.<\/p>\n \u201cBy making the fungus sick, the growth rate and reproduction of the fungus decrease,\u201d she explains. \u201cBy slowing down the fungus, the trees can respond to infection and recover.\u201d<\/p>\n Researchers are also trying to understand why hypovirus infection is more successful in some places (such as Michigan) than in others (such as West Virginia).<\/p>\n Additionally, researchers want to understand how introducing the hypovirus in a canker can affect entire American chestnut populations. Along with scientists from Michigan and West Virginia, Baines is reaching out to colleagues from two UW-L departments \u2014 computer science and mathematics.<\/p>\n Assistant Professor of Mathematics Eric Eager has been modeling short-term and long-term hypovirus effects to predict what will happen in the future. \u201cI\u2019m getting a hands-on look at what my equations say,\u201d notes first-year faculty member Eager joking that \u201cI\u2019m boldly going where few mathematicians have gone before.\u201d<\/p>\n Along with Eager, Computer Science Assistant Professor Martin Allen has been developing a model to understand the dynamics of interactions of individual cankers. Their findings could help determine where the hypovirus should be introduced in the canker \u2014 in one or more places.<\/p>\n Baines says all three departments are taking advantage of the research. \u201cIt\u2019s all mutually beneficial,\u201d she explains. \u201cWe all benefit from working together.\u201d<\/p>\n Faculty aren\u2019t the only ones benefitting. UW-L undergraduate biology and math students are getting firsthand skills.<\/p>\n Since 2009, more than 15 undergraduates have been involved with the West Salem grove, interacting with Michigan State and West Virginia University faculty and state DNR researchers. Several students have continued their research in graduate school.<\/p>\n Grove getting national notice<\/strong><\/p>\n Until the early \u201990s, the West Salem grove was the largest uninfected stand of American chestnuts in the U.S. Baines and the other researchers are now working to make it the country\u2019s come-back grove.<\/p>\n \u201cThis stand has seen a lot of work done on it,\u201d explains Baines who has witnessed benefits from introducing the hypovirus.<\/p>\n Over the years, she and other researches have discovered the viruses they introduced have slowed down or in some cases even stopped the cankers. And, they\u2019re finding the hypovirus introduced years ago is now naturally appearing in trees that haven\u2019t been treated.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>