Plant-Insect Ecosystems
10-Minute Paper
Matthew F. Purcell (he/him/his)
Director
CSIRO Health and Biosecurity
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Nathan E. Harms
Research Biologist
US Army Engineer Research and Development Center
Vicksburg, Mississippi
Megann Harlow
Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Patrick Hafliger
Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI)
Delemont, Jura, Switzerland
Hong Sun-Hee
Hankyong National University
Anseong, Kyonggi-do, Republic of Korea
Jialiang Zhang
Huanggang Normal University
Huanggang, Hebei, China (People's Republic)
Sonja Stutz
CABI
Delemont, Jura, Switzerland
Ian A. Knight
Vicksburg, Mississippi
Chenxi Lui
CAAS - Institute of Plant Protection
Beijing, Beijing, China (People's Republic)
Yellow floating heart, Nymphoides peltata is a widespread floating-leaved aquatic invasive plant in the US and biological control is being considered as a sustainable method of control. From 2018-2022, surveys to locate host-specific and damaging natural enemies were conducted in Europe and Asia as were studies to compare the plant demography between the introduced and native ranges. Yellow floating heart is genetically most-closely related to populations in Europe, but we found no promising agents in this region, except for two previously reported fungal pathogens. In Asia, 11 arthropod species were identified as potential biocontrol agents based on observed damage in situ and literature reports about host-specificity. Of particular interest are at least three species of Bagous weevils, one of which may be Bagous charbenensi, and a leaf-mining Hydrellia fly species, yet to be identified. In Korea and China, the generalist leaf-cutting moth Elophila interruptalis is common as were other leaf-cutting moths observed in domestic surveys in the US. A major discovery was the damaging fungal pathogen, Septoria villarsiae isolated from plants in a private pond in Maine- a first record in the Western hemisphere. The next steps for this program should include initial host-specificity and impact assessments of the fruit-feeding Bagous weevils from China and Korea and the leaf-mining Hydrellia sp. fly from South Korea.