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Plant-Insect Ecosystems

Section Symposium

Biocontrol of Drosophila suzukii: Status Updates on Natural Enemies and Ecological Considerations

Progress towards classical biological control for spotted-wing drosophila in the northeastern United States

Tuesday, November 15, 2022

2:38 PM – 2:50 PM PT

Location: Vancouver Convention Centre, Meeting Room 204

Presenting Author(s)

PF

Philip Fanning

University of Maine
Orono, Maine

Co-author(s)

BJ

Benjamin C. Johnson

Graduate Student
University of Maine
Orono, Maine

Co-Author(s)

Patricia Prade

Postdoctoral Associate
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
New Brunswick, New Jersey
Cesar R. Rodriguez-Saona

Extension Specialist in Entomology
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Chatsworth, New Jersey
Greg M. Loeb

Cornell University
Geneva, New York

The invasive species spotted-wing drosophila (SWD), Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura), is the primary pest of soft-skinned fruit crops in the USA. SWD is a particularly challenging pest to manage because it has exceptionally high reproductive capacity and a lack of effective resident biological controls. SWD also has an expansive host range, including the utilization of a large number of wild hosts in the surrounding landscape from which they can readily migrate into crop fields. The most promising biological control option was the introduction of a specific parasitoid from the native range of SWD. Of the Asian parasitoids surveyed, Ganaspis brasiliensis (Ihering) was chosen based on host specificity. A petition for the release of the species was recently granted, and releases of G. brasiliensis will be released in the northeastern United States in the summer of 2022. Initial investigations in the northeastern United States are focusing on determining the potential of G. brasiliensis to manage SWD and to understand how to integrate the species into new IPM programs by optimizing methods for the release and quantifying the establishment of G. brasiliensis by better understanding its overwintering biology. In this talk, we will focus on preliminary results from these experiments.