Savory maple syrup, your dining room table and van loads of tourists eager to enjoy the changing autumnal colors may be history, should scientists lose the war against the hardwood trees' number-one enemy: the Asian long-horned beetle.

Not since the Dutch Elm disease of the 1950s have hardwood trees faced such a nemesis in North America. But with the invasion of the Asian long-horned beetle, government and university researchers have mobilized early to avert a Dutch Elm-like tragedy. In that effort, Cornell University researchers are among the scheduled speakers at a daylong symposium to update entomologists on the insidious beetle. The symposium, "Asian Long-horned Beetle in North America -- A Tale of Two Cities: Facts and Fallout," will be held Feb. 23 at the 70th annual meeting of the Eastern Branch of the Entomological Society of America, at the Sheraton Ocean front Hotel, Virginia Beach, Va.

Inadvertently transported in shipping crates from Asia, the beetle has already infested parts of Brooklyn and Long Island, N.Y., and Chicago. In the past two years, port inspectors have intercepted beetles in Philadelphia, Oakland, Calif., and Toronto. It could easily threaten the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest, as well as the hardwood industries of the Northeast and Canada.

E. Richard Hoebeke, assistant curator of the Cornell Entomology Collection and the first entomologist to recognize the beetle's U.S. invasion in 1996, organized the symposium. Topics will include the latest information on the biology of the beetle, a report on the infestation responses in Brooklyn and Chicago, behavioral observations of the beetle and potential natural enemies, and a report on pheromone isolation and field trials to survey for the pest. Ann Hajek, Cornell associate professor of entomology, will present "Asian Studies and the Use of Fungi and Nematodes Against Asian Long-horned Beetles."

"This is the first time all of the active researchers of the Asian long-horned beetle will be a part of a program," says Hoebeke. "We'll be looking at many issues, such as what brought this beetle into the country. In essence: the past, the present and the future."