Major Pest is No Match for Microscopic Wasp

A group of scientists from the University of California Riverside has successfully used biological control to eradicate the glassy-winged sharpshooter in Tahiti, a major pest in the country. The pest has also been a major agricultural nuisance in Hawaii, Easter and Cook Islands, and other regions in the French Polynesia. The glassy-winged sharpshooter feeds on a wide variety of plants. It serves also as a vector for a bacterial pathogen that can kill grapevines, peach, almond, olive and other ornamental bushes and trees.

Led by Mark Hoddle, the researchers introduced Gonatocerus ashmeadi, a microscopic parasitic wasp, into the islands. The wasp larvae feed on sharpshooter eggs. Hoddle and his colleagues released nearly 14,000 wasps on 27 sites in Tahiti in 2005. Just after 5 months of release, the sharpshooters decreased in number at all study sites to less than 5 percent of their original population density.

Hoddle pointed out that “the success of biological control with host-specific natural enemies demonstrates that alternative technologies that are not chemically driven can be very effective in suppressing invasive species.”

Read the new release at http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=1791