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OSCEOLA TOWNSHIP -- The purple prisms are hard to miss among the otherwise green scenery of the woods near Calumet.  But they're bright on purpose and filled with the sweet aroma of manuka oil, creating the perfect trap to attract the emerald ash borer.

"They’re sticky on the outside," says field technician Emily Gochis.  "We hang them up in the trees so they're free of the branches and these insects fly in and get stuck to them."

More than five million trees have died since the emerald ash borer was first discovered in southeastern Michigan back in 2002.

Earlier this year, a research team from Michigan Tech received $650,000 in stimulus money to begin assessing the local infestation and to develop management methods for other areas affected by the exotic beetle.

This month the group will be placing about 550 traps in trees covering a six-mile radius from the location where they know the insect is already established.

"We’re trapping at a higher density closer to the area where we know they originated," says Professor Andrew Storer.  "We’re trapping at lower densities of about one trap per square mile as we get further from that area."

The team is posting signs and jotting down GPS coordinates as they hang the traps, all of which should help speed up the collection process that they'll begin after 60 days.

"We do anticipate finding areas that we're not aware of because it's a very difficult insect to detect," Storer says.

Starting this summer there will be some efforts to manage the core infestation near Calumet.  The group says these purple traps will help them detect how the population has grown and spread through Houghton County so that they can come up with a more complete plan to slow and control the destruction.