Captive sentinel hosts efficiently measure the establishment, seasonality and dispersal of a parasitoid biological contr
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Captive sentinel hosts efficiently measure the establishment, seasonality and dispersal of a parasitoid biological control agent Scott Hardwick1 · Craig B. Phillips1 Received: 2 May 2020 / Revised: 12 October 2020 / Accepted: 3 November 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Introduced biological control agents are used to suppress populations and reduce the damage caused by many exotic herbivorous insects in New Zealand pasture. Understanding the dispersal behaviour of a recently introduced biocontrol agent in its new environment is important as it helps biocontrol practitioners make decisions on the number and location of future releases. In this study, a monitoring device which contained sentinel hosts was developed to monitor the establishment and dispersal of the Irish strain of Microctonus aethiopoides (Hymenoptera, Braconidae) into areas of the South Island of New Zealand where the clover pest Sitona obsoletus Gmelin (Coleoptera, Curculionidae) had recently become established. Field tests of the monitoring device at five sites in Marlborough confirmed that M. aethiopoides would enter the device through a 900 µm mesh and parasitise the sentinel weevils within. In a further trial conducted over 4 years at four sites in North Canterbury, monitoring devices successfully tracked the dispersal and establishment of M. aethiopoides at sites up to 27 km from the original release site. Monitoring devices containing sentinel hosts may help reduce the cost of classical biological control programmes as they enable rapid sampling of numerous sites and largely eliminate the time consuming practice of dissecting field collected hosts to determine the presence of the parasitoid. Keywords Sitona obsoletus · Microctonus aethiopoides · Classical biological control · Parasitoid establishment · Monitoring device · Sentinel hosts
Key message • Mass-emergence devices which use a selective sized
mesh have been used to conserve and augment parasitoid populations for controlling pests of amenity trees and release a recently introduced parasitoid used in classical biological control in pastures. We hypothesized that this technique could also be used to monitor the establishment and dispersal of a recently introduced parasitoid (i.e. a monitoring device) • We used a monitoring device that contained sentinel hosts and allowed the entry of its parasitoid to moni-
Communicated by M. Jonsson. * Scott Hardwick [email protected] 1
AgResearch Lincoln, Private Bag 4749, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand
tor the seasonality, establishment and dispersal of the recently introduced classical biological control agent. • Monitoring devices reduced the cost of the classical biological control programme as it enable rapid sampling of numerous sites and largely eliminated the need to dissect field collected hosts to determine the presence of the parasitoid
Introduction Classical biological control involves introducing nonnative natural enemies to new regions to assist pest mana
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