Center for Plant Health Science and Technology
Biological Control Unit |
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Location: Raleigh, NC
Phone: (919) 855-7407
Fax: (919) 855-7480
Contact: Ken Bloem
CPHST laboratories historically have had a strong component that supports domestic operational programs, particularly in the area of biological control. For example, the laboratories in Edinburg, TX, Bozeman, MT, and Niles, MI were previously dedicated almost entirely to biological control (BC). However, in response to shifting Agency needs to meet its safeguarding mandate, CPHST laboratories have become much more multifunctional and interdisciplinary. No single laboratory now focuses exclusively on BC, although most laboratories have at least one scientist that supports BC safeguarding efforts. The Biological Control Unit (BCU) was created in 2005 to ensure that CPHST maintains dynamic horizontal relations across laboratories and locations and vertical relations across levels of authority within CPHST and the Agency.
The BCU focuses on developing technologies that allow living biological organisms, such as natural enemies and competitors, to be used alone or in combination with other control tactics to effectively mitigate the impacts of introduced, invasive insect pests, weeds, and plant pathogens, while minimizing impacts on the environment and non-target organisms.
The BCU Director maintains an outward-looking national perspective on APHIS-PPQ safeguarding issues and works to increase coordination, cooperation, and facilitation of PPQ biological control activities by ensuring that CPHST scientists operate within a customer driven, risk- and feasibility-based system for prioritizing work on key pests.
BCU scientists provide technical oversight and expertise to programs to ensure that scientific knowledge gaps are identified and addressed, cooperators deliver needed services, and implementation protocols are effectively developed and transferred to stakeholders as quickly as possible. The primary stakeholders of the BCU are PPQ Eastern and Western Regional Program Managers, PPQ State Plant Health Directors, and State Plant Regulatory Officials.
BCU activities can be categorized into two broad areas for mitigating pest threats- offshore programs and domestic programs. Offshore programs focus on the development of BC technologies that help prevent or slow the establishment of key exotic pests in the United States and allow the Agency to be better prepared if they do become established. The goal of domestic BC programs is to develop technologies that allow eradication efforts to be more effective, provide for timely, sustainable, environmentally sound, and fiscally efficient pest management options should eradication efforts fail, and effectively manage widespread exotic pests for which eradication is not an option.
The BCU works with USDA-ARS and other entities to discover and evaluate new BC agents; provides permitted BC agents collected from established field insectaries for distribution by PPQ and other project cooperators; develops cost effective rearing and monitoring systems for approved BC agents and their hosts; and works to ensure the safety of BC agents by continued post-release monitoring. BCU scientists serve as technical experts on science advisory panels for emergency and domestic programs such as the red palm mite technical working group, cactus moth host nursery certification panel, Western Regional BC steering committee, and Russian knapweed BC consortium. They also develop educational and programmatic materials for use by PPQ and other collaborators such as BC manuals for Dalmatian toadflax and leafy spurge and a diagnostic brochure for the saltcedar leaf beetle.
The BCU is a virtual team of 10-12 scientists located at various CPHST laboratories and Plant Protection Stations including the National Weed Management Laboratory in Ft. Collins, CO, Pest Survey, Detection & Exclusion Laboratory in Otis, MA, Pest Detection, Diagnostic & Management Laboratory in Edinburg, TX, and the Albany (CA), Miami (FL), Gainesville (FL), and Guatemala Plant Protection Stations. The Miami Plant Protection Station (MPPS) is the only station not directly associated with a CPHST laboratory.
Recent Accomplishments
- Evaluated and permitted the emerald ash borer parasitoid Spathius agrili (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), in collaboration with China, for release in Michigan.
- Established a colony of the entomophagous nematode Beddingia siricidicola in support of potential future release efforts, and conducted a controlled field release to assess the impact of the nematode on sirex woodwasp under local conditions using infested red and Scotch pine.
- Collected more than 100,000 adult saltcedar leaf beetles, Diorhabda elongata, in Nevada and distributed the beetles for field release at 35 field insectary sites in Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, and Wyoming.
- Completed a field study examining the utilization of native bindweeds by the field bindweed mite, Aceria malherbae. Preliminary results indicate that native bindweeds seem to be poor hosts for the mite and may be at little risk for non-target attack.
- Discovered, in collaboration with cooperators at Florida A&M University and in the Caribbean, a complex of natural enemies, including two commercially available parasitoids, maintaining passion vine mealybug (Planococcus minor) at very low, non-pest levels in Trinidad. These natural enemies could serve as potential biocontrol agents should the pest become established in the United States.
- Found that tropical soda apple leaf feeding beetles, Gratiana boliviana, persisted through two winters in Alabama and Georgia. Releases of beetles were also initiated in Texas. Efforts continue to monitor their impact.
- Planned and delivered a workshop hosted by the Western Region in Ft. Collins, CO to provide State Plant Health Directors and their staff with an overview of biological control principles and concepts that guide PPQ programs.