 Entomology Today posted: ” By Lauren Diepenbrock, Ph.D. Hibiscus mealybug (Nipaecoccus viridis) is a mealybug known by many names across the world and is regionally referred to as the “lebbeck mealybug” in Florida. There, this mealybug is emerging as a multi-crop pest, t” Entomology Today Small but Destructive: Hibiscus Mealybug Emerges as Concerning Pest of Florida Fruits, Ornamentals, Some Row Crops  Entomology Today Feb 13 The invasive hibiscus mealybug (Nipaecoccus viridis) has been documented on 51 host plants in Florida—so far. A new guide in the Journal of Integrated Pest Management provides one of the first in-depth looks at this emerging pest. Read more of this post Comment Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from Entomology Today.Change your email settings at manage subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: https://entomologytoday.org/2023/02/13/small-destructive-hibiscus-mealybug-pest-florida/  Powered by WordPress.com |
Archive for the ‘Emerging/invasive pests’ Category
Posted in Emerging/invasive pests on February 13, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Africa: Maize crop is at risk from devastating fall armyworm pest
Posted in Emerging/invasive pests, Insects on February 8, 2023| Leave a Comment »
JANUARY 31, 2023
Almost all of Africa’s maize crop is at risk from devastating fall armyworm pest, study reveals
by CABI
Almost all of Africa’s maize crop is at risk from the devastating fall armyworm pest (Spodoptera frugiperda) according to new research published in the journal Frontiers in Insect Science.
Scientists from the University of Minnesota’s GEMS Informatics Center, and CABI’s Dr. Roger Day, Global Advisor, Plant Health, have highlighted how almost the entire African maize crop is grown in areas with climates that support seasonal infestations of the pest.
The researchers assembled 3,175 geo-tagged occurrences of the fall armyworm worldwide and use that data in conjunction with information about the physiological requirements of the pest to spatially assess its global climate suitability.
They also found that almost 92% of Africa’s maize growing areas support year-round growth of fall armyworm. Alarmingly, 95% of the crop is also deemed climatically suitable for fall armyworm and at least three or more pests such as the maize stalk borer, Western corn rootworm and Asiatic witchweed.
Starkly, over half (52.5%) of the African maize area believed suitable for fall armyworm is at further risk from an additional nine pests, while over a third (38.1%) of the area is susceptible to an additional 10 pests.
Dr. Senait Senay, lead author from the University of Minnesota, said, “The spatial concurrence of climatically suitable locations for these pests raises the production risk for farmers well above the risks posed from fall armyworm alone.”
“This constitutes an exceptionally risky production environment for African maize producers, with substantive and complex implications for developing and implementing crop breeding, biological, chemical and other crop management strategies to help mitigate these multi-peril risks,” notes Professor Phil Pardey, co-lead author of the study.
Outbreaks of fall armyworm in Africa were first observed in southwest Nigerian maize fields in January 2016 and thereafter in Benin, Togo São Tome and Principe. Since then, the pest has spread to more than 40 African countries including Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania.
In 2021, CABI scientists conducted the first comprehensive study on the economic impact of a range of Invasive Alien Species (IAS) on Africa’s agricultural sector which they estimated to be USD $65.58 billion a year. They established that the fall armyworm alone caused the highest annual yield losses at USD $9.4 billion.
Dr. Day said, “Climates that favor maize production are also seasonably suitable for fall armyworm infestations—not just in Africa. Indeed, around half of the world’s maize area, mostly in the moist and warm tropical locales, is also likely to sustain the development of fall armyworm year-round.”
“Strategies to deal with fall armyworm, or any other crop pest are best conceived and executed from a multi-peril pest perspective—especially as part of an Integrated Pest Management practice—rather than a piece-meal, pest-by-pest approach.”
The study, which is part of a broader GEMS informatics effort concerning Global Pest Risk Analytics, concludes by suggesting that crop management may benefit more from genetic solutions and environmentally friendly biological control agents.
These, they say, require less frequent and timely trips to markets to secure necessary fungicides/insecticides as seasonal pest infestations unfold.
However, they also admit that while IPM practices constitute another, often complementary, strategy for controlling crop pests—especially in tropical regions where natural enemies can have year-round survivability, IPM is not widely adopted in the developing world.
Dr. Senay added, “A multi-peril pest risk approach can be used to both benchmark future multi-peril pest risk assessments—under prospective changes in climate—while also informing current and nearer-term strategies to target market and government resources.”
“This can be done in ways which have the most beneficial effect in mitigating the complex of crop pests that pose the most risk for farmers growing particular crops in particular locales.”
More information: Senait D. Senay et al, Fall armyworm from a maize multi-peril pest risk perspective, Frontiers in Insect Science (2022). DOI: 10.3389/finsc.2022.971396
Provided by CABI
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Ash tree-dependent insects
Posted in Emerging/invasive pests, Insect-plant interaction on February 8, 2023| Leave a Comment »
For Ash-Dependent Insects, Some Plants Make Good Alternatives—But Others Don’t
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With ash trees decimated by the emerald ash borer, where do other insects that depend on ash go? A new study shows landscape managers that choosing the right replacements for ash is critical for such ash-reliant native insects, such as Ceratomia undulosa, shown here. (Photo by Joseph Berger, Bugwood.org)
By Andrew Porterfield
Andrew Porterfield
Across the northeastern United States, the ash tree has been heading toward extinction since 2002. That year, the emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis), native to northeastern Asia, was first identified in Michigan. Since then, landscape managers, horticulturalists, and entomologists have been looking at alternative plants to support species of Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) that have evolved to depend on the ash.
But finding the right plant can be challenging, as evidenced in a study published in January in Environmental Entomology, which found that, at least for three species of ash-dependent moths, alternative non-native plants vary significantly in their effects on the moths’ larval development. The study was led by Grace Horne, as part of her undergraduate thesis at Colby College in Maine, in collaboration with researchers at The Caterpillar Lab in New Hampshire and the Oak Spring Garden Foundation in Virginia. Horne is now a Ph.D. student in entomology at the University of California, Davis.
Grace Horne
Most insect herbivores have evolved to feed on just a small number of plant types. “Compared to many regionally native plants capable of hosting large communities of locally adapted insect herbivores, introduced and invasive plants generally support less biodiverse food webs and host fewer insect populations … than native congeners,” the authors write.
To see how that adaptation could work among ash-dependent insects, Horne and her team tested three types of hawkmoths on native ash. These insects represent just three of nearly 300 arthropods (and 100 lepidopterans) that associate with ash. They also tested their developmental reactions to three alternative plants: lilac (Syringa vulgaris), weeping forsythia (Forsythia suspensa), and European privet (Ligustrum vulgare).
The researchers reared three ash-specialist moth species—Ceratomia undulosa, Sphinx kalmiae, and Sphinx chersis (known as the great ash sphinx)—from hatching to pupa stage. During the summer of 2020 in southern New Hampshire, they raised 154 C. undulosa, 123 S. kalmiae, and 166 S. chersis caterpillars on the host plants in a laboratory. To confirm their laboratory results, the researchers also placed six C. undulosa caterpillars on field trees. They also conducted field surveys along suburban roads of alternative host plants, identifying caterpillar species on those trees.
Larval growth for all three species varied greatly by host plant. “Perhaps the biggest surprise for us was just how variable the responses were,” Horne says. “For example, Sphinx kalmiae did quite well on lilac, but Sphinx chersis perished entirely on the same plant. We expected that these congeners might have similar tolerances of the non-native plants, but this was not the case.”
Specifically, caterpillars raised on non-native plants took longer to reach pupation than those raised on ash. Ceratomia undulosa and Sphinx chersis showed higher mortality rates on non-native plants than on native ash. In addition, despite normal caterpillar growth, most pupae of all three species reared on privet exhibited malformed wing buds and were probably not viable. “This malformation … was another major surprise,” Horne says. “We attributed this to some sort of nutrient deficiency, but further work will have to be done to elucidate the specific mechanism causing this deformity.”
Sphinx kalmiae is one of the three ash-specialist moth species included in the study, shown here on privet (Ligustrum vulgare) under ultraviolet light during a field survey. Grace Horne, lead author on the study, says “Many caterpillars glow under UV light, so they are easy to spot amongst the foliage at night.” (Photo by Grace Horne)
The findings counter anecdotal accounts of success in raising C. undulosa and S. kalmiae on privet, an invasive plant in eastern North America (and especially invasive in the southeastern U.S.). Privet, the authors write, “may constitute an ecological trap for some ash-feeding insects in North America,” but they warn that further verification is needed.
The study underscored the need to continue preserving ash trees but also to remove privet, all in order to support ash-dependent lepidopterans. “The choices made by zoning commissions, city planners, landscape architects, and homeowners determine integral components of food webs, and the size of the native insect community that can be supported is becoming increasingly relevant when making landscaping decisions,” the researchers write.
Read More
“Specialist Herbivore Performance on Introduced Plants During Native Host Decline”
Environmental Entomology
Andrew Porterfield is a writer, editor, and communications consultant for academic institutions, companies, and nonprofits in the life sciences. He is based in Camarillo, California. Follow him on Twitter at @AMPorterfield or visit his Facebook page.
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Management of Tomato Leafminer
Posted in Emerging/invasive pests, IPM on January 28, 2023| Leave a Comment »
International IPM Program Drives Sustainable Management of Tomato Leafminer
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Since 2012, the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International’s Plantwise program has guided growers in 10 Latin American countries on managing Tuta absoluta (larva shown here), a devastating lepidopteran pest of tomatoes, and substituting or complementing chemical control with more sustainable strategies. (Photo by Marja van der Straten, NVWA Plant Protection Service, Bugwood.org)
By Yelitza C. Colmenárez, Ph.D., and Donna Smith
The lepidopteran pest Tuta absoluta is one of the world’s most devastating phytophagous species affecting tomato plants and fresh tomatoes, causing high levels of crop production loss, especially when no control strategies are implemented. Tuta absoluta—sometimes known as the tomato leafminer, tomato pinworm, or tomato moth—continues to cause crop losses in the Americas, where it originates, but more recently it has invaded production areas in Europe, Asia, and Africa, owing to the globalization of commerce and trade, which, along with other factors, is considered responsible for the increase in invasive species.
Given T. absoluta‘s economic importance, management strategies have mainly focused on pesticides with a wide range of organic micropollutants that negatively impact the environment, mostly due to biomagnification and bioconcentration. Thus, more sustainable strategies need to be used alongside chemical control, including biological control agents such as parasitoids, predators, and entomopathogenic microorganisms; botanical insecticides; and pheromones and plant resistance.
In an article published in May 2022 in the open-access Journal of Integrated Pest Management (JIPM), researchers at the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International and several universities in Latin America detail case studies in sustainable management efforts for T. absoluta through CABI’s Plantwise program. (Co-author of this article Yelitza C. Colmenárez, Ph.D., is lead author of the report in JIPM.)
Tuta absoluta Management From a Plantwise Perspective
Plantwise is a global program led by CABI that helps farmers handle plant health problems through a national network of plant clinics, established in each country through which the program is implemented. The clinics are run by trained plant doctors, from whom farmers can obtain practical advice. During its 10-year implementation, there were more than 3,700 plant clinics in 34 countries around the world, where plant doctors provided diagnoses and management advice for any problem and any crop, benefitting farmers who need help with the plant pests and diseases affecting their crops.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, Plantwise was operational in Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Grenada, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Peru, and Trinidad and Tobago.
In Bolivia, plant clinics were considered a standard procedure to enhance the technical abilities of extension officers and farmers, and there is evidence that they have led to increased crop yields and quality. Likewise, in Costa Rica efforts have been made to implement plant clinics in collaboration with key institutions in the country.
All Plantwise countries have developed pest management guides called “Green and Yellow Lists” with the help of experts in entomology, phytopathology, nematology, and acarology, as well as agricultural extension agents from different institutions (e.g., public universities, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, and research institutes) to develop precise advice on dealing with some of the most important pests.
The plant clinics have allowed researchers to determine the distribution of T. absoluta and identify the tomato cultivars most frequently associated with this pest in Bolivia and Costa Rica; it has been found to be most widespread in the department of Santa Cruz, followed by Cochabamba (five localities), Chuquisaca, Tarija, and Tiraque in Bolivia, while in Costa Rica it has been reported from Alajuela Province, where T. absoluta feeds on eight cultivars.
In Bolivia, T. absoluta management recommendations evolved greatly between 2012 and 2018. When the plant clinics were first established, farmers were predominantly advised to use chemical control; from 2012 onward, however, chemical use diminished and soon stabilized, reaching levels between 35 percent and 49 percent of recommended treatments. Meanwhile, alternative management strategies (e.g., biological, ethological, and cultural controls) began to increase in Bolivia, thanks to the influence and recommendations of the plant clinics.
During Plantwise implementation, the technicians who delivered this advice to the farmers when visiting the plant clinics were also trained in integrated pest management (IPM) and were thus familiarized with more sustainable methods of managing the key pest population. Cultural control-based recommendations, including lower-leaf pruning and elimination of crop residues and infested fruits, among others, have shown a steady increase since 2014. They reached levels of 35 percent and 31.8 percent in 2016 and 2017, respectively, similar to the 2016 chemical control levels. Ethological control recommendations, such as the use of pheromone traps, showed a discrete increase from 2014 to 2016 (12 percent to 15 percent), but in 2017 and 2018 reached a range of 25 percent to 27.1 percent.
As demonstrated in Bolivia and Costa Rica, the Plantwise program has brought substantial change to the ways in which farmers deal with pests, including T. absoluta, based on substituting or complementing chemical control with more sustainable strategies, due partially to the plant doctors’ recommendations.
Positive performance outcomes can impact the extension advisor’s ability to efficiently carry out a given task, giving them the confidence to perform similar tasks in the future. Reducing the overuse of insecticides in tomatoes alongside a higher IPM adoption rate provided a great case study illustrating the importance of field extension professionals in advising growers. It proved the importance of investing in technology transfer to improve food quality and, from a broader perspective, overall quality of life.
The positive results presented through the case studies shared in JIPM should encourage governments to invest more money in these basic principles. It is certainly much more efficient than attempting to mitigate the consequences associated with the misuse of pesticides, such as pollution, public health issues, and pest resurgence, among other problems.
Read More
Journal of Integrated Pest Management
Yelitza C. Colmenárez, Ph.D., is director of the CABI Brazil Centre and regional coordinator of Plantwise in Latin America and the Caribbean, based in Botucatu, São Paulo, Brazil. Email: y.colmenarez@cabi.org. Donna Smith is a communications manager at CABI Switzerland.
This article is adapted from an article originally published on the Plantwise Blog. Republished with permission.
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Australia:Tackling rusty plant threat
Posted in Emerging/invasive pests, Fungi on January 11, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Sunday, 08 January 2023 09:37:18
PestNet
Grahame Jackson posted a new submission ‘Aussie science tackling rusty plant threat’
Submission
Aussie science tackling rusty plant threat
AAP
When eucalypt-destroying myrtle rust was detected on a cut flower farm and in two nurseries north of Sydney 12 years ago, a major containment operation was launched.
Millions of dollars were spent but to no avail. Within months, the invasive fungus, identified by its bright yellow spots, had swept up the coast and been discovered as far north as Cairns.
It has since spread across the Australian landscape and now flourishes in bushland reserves, backyards, commercial operations, nature strips and park lands alike.
With the exception of South Australia, it’s infiltrated every state including Tasmania, as well as the Tiwi Islands in the Northern Territory.
Authorities agree myrtle rust is now endemic and cannot be eradicated.
In South America, from where it originated, it’s relatively harmless. Not so locally, given that almost 80 per cent of Australian native trees belong to Austropuccinia psidii’s primary victim, the myrtaceae family.
Among 2000 Australian plants in total, the bottle brush, lemon myrtle, tea tree, lilly pilly, blackbutt and broad-leaved paperbark tree melaleuca quinquenervia are among its most vulnerable members.
According to the Invasive Species Council, myrtle rust could eventually universally “alter the composition and function of forest, woodland, heath and wetland ecosystems”.
It says the incursion “is about as bad as it can get for biosecurity in Australia”.
Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek agrees a co-ordinated response is needed.
Read on: https://www.aap.com.au/news/aussie-science-tackling-rusty-plant-threat/
Insights on how invasive insects spread
Posted in Emerging/invasive pests on January 11, 2023| Leave a Comment »
01-05-2023
Tweets provide insights on how invasive insects spread
Earth.com staff writer
A new study led by North Carolina State University has found that Twitter and online new articles could be used effectively to track the timing and location of invasive insect spread in the United States and globally. These findings suggest that such sources are promising for filling gaps when official data are not widely available.
“The idea was to explore if we could use this data to fill in some of the information gaps about pest spread, and ultimately, to support the development of better predictive models of where pest spread is happening, and when to use costly control measures,” said study lead author Laura Tateosian, an associate professor of Geospatial Analytics at NC State. “Even though these are not formal scientific sources, we found that we could clearly see some of the major events that were occurring about two invasive pests in the news, and on Twitter.”
The scientists tracked Tweets and online news articles (published between 2011 and 2021) about two invasive insects: the spotted lanternfly and the tomato leaf miner (Tuta absoluta). The former – first spotted in the U.S. in 2014 – is an insect native to Asia which can damage or even destroy grapes, cherries, hops, certain lumber trees, and other plants. The latter – often nicknamed the “tomato Ebola” – is native to South America, and was first discovered in Spain in 2006 before spreading to Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
“While some invasive insects have reached their global range, in both of these cases, the pests are actively spreading,” said study co-author Ariel Saffer, a graduate student in Geospatial Analytics at NC State. “We launched this as a proof-of-concept study to see if it would be scientifically reasonable to use these sources to track pest spread. We compared information in places where the insects were known to be present to see if these sources accurately captured existing knowledge.”
The analysis revealed that activity on Twitter and in news stories reflected some of the patterns in official surveys, such as the pests’ seasonal cycles, and major outbreaks. In Pennsylvania – where the spotted lanternfly was first found – news articles uncovered one county not listed in the official records.
“News media and social media have the potential to give you more immediate insight into what’s going on, especially if scientific information on insect spread is not immediately published in scientific literature, or not widely available to other scientists. Also, relying on data from scientific publications can sometimes offer a patchwork coverage of space and time, depending on when that study happened. It can be hard to get aggregated information in continuous time, especially at the global scale, as that information can be managed by multiple agencies,” Saffer concluded.
The study is published in the journal Computers, Environment and Urban Systems.
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By Andrei Ionescu, Earth.com Staff Writer
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Posted in Bacteria, Emerging/invasive pests on December 27, 2022| Leave a Comment »
How you can help Guam’s dying gagu
