Scientists from CABI’s centre in Switzerland this year added two new projects to their portfolio of invasive weed targets. These included, blueweed (Echium vulgare), also known as viper’s bugloss, and European frogbit (Hydrocharis morsus-ranae), both of which have many negative environmental and economic impacts.
On the back of the European frogbit project, CABI has also started surveying water soldier, Stratiotes aloides, given its taxonomic relatedness and overlapping distribution.
Dr Philip Weyl, CABI’s Head of the Weed Biological Control Team in Switzerland, said, the ongoing projects are, as usual, making good headway with several agents getting close to the petitioning process. These include agents against Russian knapweed, dyers woad, common tansy, garlic mustard, flowering rush and black locust.
He added, “The spring and summer this year were particularly cool and wet, which mainly affected the seed feeders because synchronizing the flowering period of the target with the non-targets and insect activity, proved to be extremely challenging.”
In the meanwhile, for the agents which have already been permitted for release in Canada, there are signs of early establishment for the Russian olive mite, Aceria angustifoliae and the root- and rhizome-feeding tortricid moth, Dichrorampha aeratana.
Dr Weyl said, “There has also been a massive push to release thousands of individuals of the stem-mining moths against phragmites in Canada, which has been very successful.”
Biological control of invasive plants
Dr Ian Knight (USACE) with Lauréline Humair and Patrick Häfliger collecting demographic data for European frogbit in Germany (Credit: CABI).
Invasive plants can pose serious threats to native species, ecosystems, human health, and many sectors of the economy such as agriculture, forestry, and tourism.
CABI has over 60 years’ experience of working on the biological control of invasive weeds with more than 50 biological control agents have been released based on the work carried out at CABI in Switzerland. Many of these are currently contributing to the successful control of important North American weeds such as leafy spurge, toadflaxes, knapweeds, houndstongue, and purple loosestrife.
Maddy Holroyd collecting common tansy stems (Credit: CABI).
Any organism intended for the control of a non-native invasive plant undergoes an extensive series of tests to determine its environmental safety before considering its release. Find out more about how CABI is pursuing classical biological control methods as an environmentally friendly, cost-effective, and sustainable way of managing invasive species here.
Additional information
Main image: Cornelia Cloşca preparing perennial pepperweed plants for exposure to Ceutorhynchus marginellus (Credit: CABI).
Weed Biological Control Progress Report 2024
You can read the ‘Weed Biological Control Progress Report 2024’ from CABI in Switzerland here.
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