Biological control of Sirex noctilio (Hymenoptera: Siricidae) in the northeastern United States using an exotic parasitic nematode

Publication date: Available online 18 January 2017 Source:Biological Control Author(s): David W. Williams, Ann E. Hajek The woodwasp Sirex noctilio is a devastating killer of pines in the southern hemisphere. Over the 20th Century, it has invaded exotic pine plantations in New Zealand, Australia, South America, and South Africa successively. In response to this woodwasp threat, in the 1960-70s CSIRO in Australia launched a major campaign of exploration for biological control agents in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, the presumed indigenous range of S. noctilio. The most promising natural enemy discovered was a nematode, Deladenus siricidicola, which lives inside a pine tree as a mycophagous form but becomes parasitic when near host larvae and sterilizes adult woodwasp females. Australian scientists developed a biological control management system based on the nematode, including how to rear and release it in the field. The CSIRO program has been a model for Sirex management in the pine-growing regions of the southern hemisphere since the 1960s. Thus, when S. noctilio was collected in North America in 2004, it seemed natural to try using the Australian model as a simple technology transfer. Unfortunately the transfer has not proved to be so simple. In the following, we present the results of six years of experimental controlled release studies, in which no nematodes were actually released into the field. One of the first discoveries was that another strain, a â€...
Source: Biological Control - Category: Biology Source Type: research