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Insect pests impose enormous costs on agriculture, forestry and human health. They may also affect biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Many of the most damaging pests are alien species that have been accidentally introduced through trade and travel. The problem with alien pests is that they have often arrived without the natural enemies that normally keep them in check in their region of origin. Classical biological control aims to redress the balance. We do this by reintroducing highly specific natural enemies that will help control the pest but without harming the rest of the environment.
We have been working to control alien forest pests using natural enemies since the centre's inception in 1948. Together with the Canadian Forest Service, we have achieved several highly acclaimed biological control successes against European forest pests introduced into North America. Examples include the control of the winter moth (Operophtera brumata), the mountain ash sawfly (Pristiphora geniculata) and the birch leaf mining sawfly (Fenusa pumilla). More recently, we helped to successfully introduce European parasitoids for the control of the lily leaf beetle (Lilioceris lilii) in New England. We are currently involved in a number of international biological control projects against forestry and ornamental plant pests.
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Our work as a team is now much broader. Today, much of our research programme concentrates on assessing the risks and impacts of invasive alien insects within Switzerland and the EU, mainly through our participation in several large collaborative research projects funded by the EU. We also recently helped develop an inventory of invasive alien insects in Switzerland, and we are currently establishing a black list of alien animal species that require particular attention and regulation in Switzerland due to their current or potential environmental impact. With partners from Albania, Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia, we have also produced an inventory and analysis of alien insects in the Balkans. By doing this we contribute in the development of regional and national strategies on prevention and management of invasive species in Europe.
Our research on invasive species also includes case studies, in particular the horsechestnut leaf miner (Cameraria ohridella) and the harlequin ladybird (Harmonia axyridis). Here, we investigate their interactions with native biodiversity and assess the risk posed by the invasive species for indigenous species.
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harlequin ladybird (Harmonia axyridis) |
Climate change is likely to have an impact on pests and diseases throughout the world, and this is no different for forest pests. We started work on this subject more recently, but we are now involved in a number of large-scale projects in this field. Our work involves studying interactions between global warming and biological invasions and assessing the possible impacts of climate change on forest production and ecosystems through its effect on forest insects and insect/ tree interactions.
The team is also regularly involved in integrated pest management programmes in agroforestry systems worldwide. For example, in a new transnational research project under the ERA ARD programme, carried out in India and Mexico, we are looking at Jatropha curcas (a shrub planted mainly as a bioenergy crop), assessing the impact of its pests and developing sustainable management methods for the main pests of the crop.
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The team is lead by Marc Kenis and presently employs two research scientists and several students. In the last five years, we provided the opportunity for three PhD students and five MSc and Diploma students to carry out their theses in our team.
The team members have published over 50 scientific papers in the last five years. Click here to see some highlights.
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We were recently involved in an EU-funded project known as ALARM (Assessing Large-scale Environmental Risks for Biodiversity with Tested Methods). This entailed developing methods to assess the major environmental risks and hazards linked to biological invasions and other pressures on biodiversity in Europe.
Since 2008, we have also been involved in another EU-funded project, PRATIQUE (Enhancements of Pest Risk Analysis Techniques). This collaborative project involves 15 European teams and aims to develop more efficient risk analysis techniques for pests and pathogens of phytosanitary concern in Europe. The CABI team's role in the project involves identifying and integrating key datasets from across the globe, necessary for performing pest risk analysis in Europe. We are also looking to enhance techniques for measuring and estimating environmental impacts by alien pests.
Since January 2009, the team has been involved, with 15 other European partners, in a new EU-funded collaborative research project, BACCARA (Biodiversity and Climate Change, a Risk Analysis). The main goal of this project is to develop tools allowing forest managers and policy makers to evaluate the risk of European forest biodiversity and productivity loss under climate change. Our particular role is to assess the impact of climate change on forest pest–natural enemy interactions as well as to coordinate dissemination activities.
See more projects from our Swiss centre