CINCINNATI — Many of the Brood X cicadas across Cincinnati are dead, but before they go, they are giving the Tri-State one last gift.

Cicada carcasses are full of nutrients that are beneficial to plants, especially trees. Their bodies act as a natural fertilizer and will help nourish vegetation across the Tri-State. The plants won't bloom more or look greener, but they will be properly nourished.

"All those nutrients in the millions of cicadas that we saw will go into the soil," said Dr. Gene Kritsky, the dean of behavioral and natural sciences at Mount St. Joseph University. "Especially for those trees where they’ve clustered at the base of a tree and you just see mounds of these things."

However, cicada carcasses don't decompose easily, so they will stick around for a while, and they can smell.

Kritsky has a solution for that, though.

"If you don’t like the looks of them," he said, "one thing you can do is literally rake them away from the tree -- not far away -- and then when you mow, provided you have a mulching mower, that will hasten the decline and the smell right away.”

Kritsky said the cicada life-cycle has already started over.

Female cicadas laid their eggs in tree branches, and soon some leaves will turn brown and fall from trees. Then, cicada nymphs will hatch and fall into the soil, looking like dust falling from a tree.

If cicadas are a point of anxiety or fear for you, click out of this story now. That's because this story is about "zombie cicadas."

The Tri-State is at the height of the once-every-17-years Brood X cicada invasion, but this time around, there's a relatively new phenomenon taking hold of the bugs: a fungus that alters their behavior and eventually causes their bodies to fall apart.

Some have dubbed them "zombie cicadas," as reported by CNN last year, describing the disembodied behavior the insects exhibit under the influence of the psychedelic fungus.

Every one of the billions of cicadas that have emerged this year are susceptible to Massospora, which produces an amphetamine compound that has and will continue to affect a small number of the insects this summer. The infection causes cicadas to lose control of their already heightened sex drive and eventually cause their bodies to erupt and ooze a white substance.

"The periodical cicadas get a fungal disease," said Dr. Gene Kritsky of Mount St. Joseph University, the nation's premiere cicada expert. "It's a rather shocking thing that happens. It makes them extremely amorous."

The final result, though: "The trouble is when the fungus matures, it causes this whole tip of his abdomen to fall off so the genitalia are gone."

But not before they can "mate like crazy," according to Matt Kasson, an associate professor of forest pathology and mycology at West Virginia University, who spoke with NPR last month.

Kasson, who has studied the fungus for the last five years, said the infection occurs before the cicadas emerge and is considered a sexually transmitted disease.

Kritsky said up to a quarter of Brood X cicadas will succumb to the fungus this summer.

The fungus can also result in some gender-bending, he said.

"What's really crazy, though, is that if he hears a male calling, the fungal infected cicada pretends he's a female to lure that male in to mate with him."