Potential for Biological Control of Phragmites australis in North America

By L. Tewksbury, R. Casagrande, B. Blossey, P. Häfliger, M. Schwarzländer. 2002

162 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Phragmites australis is a cosmopolitan plant that is undergoing a population explosion in freshwater and tidal wetlands on the east coast of North America. The rapid spread of P. australis in recent years and the virtual absence of native herbivores feeding on P. australis have led wetland ecologists to believe that either the species or more aggressive genotypes were introduced. The historical record of the occurrence of P. australis in North America and the scarcity of indigenous herbivores provide conflicting evidence for the status of the species as native or introduced. A comparison of P. australis populations from North America and other continents using advanced genetic techniques is underway to help determine the status of current and historic North American genotypes. Literature and field surveys reveal that of the 26 herbivores currently known to feed on P. australis in North America (many accidentally introduced during the last decade), only 5 are native. In Europe, over 170 herbivore species have been reported feeding on P. australis, some causing significant damage. Of these herbivores, rhizome-feeding species with considerable negative impact on P. australis performance include the lepidopterans Rhizedra lutosa (already present in North America), Phragmataecia castaneae, Chilo phragmitella, and Schoenobius gigantella. Stem-boring moths in the genera Archanara and Arenostola and the chloropid fly Platycephala planifrons can have large detrimental impacts on P. australis in Europe and should be evaluated for their potential as biological control agents. In addition, the interaction of potential control agents with accidentally introduced P. australis herbivores needs to be evaluated in North America. Regardless of the results of the genetic analyses, any decision to introduce additional host-specific herbivores in an attempt to control P. australis will require considerable dialogue. This decision needs to weigh the current negative ecological and economic impacts of P. australis and the benefits and risks of a biological control program.

Subfields: Ecology, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Insect Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ae3f75e33d15cae7c1b5dfeb138f926097152691

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology

1. Petr Pyšek
2. M. Bertness
3. C. Holdredge
4. P. Moran
5. M. Cock
6. John A. Goolsby
7. Christoph Kueffer
8. L. Martin

In Insect Science

1. Petr Pyšek
2. P. Moran
3. M. Cock
4. John A. Goolsby
5. M. Bertness
6. L. Meyerson
7. R. Hufbauer
8. H. Hinz

Citations in the corpus

• Applying molecular-based approaches to classical biological control of weeds (2011, background): “australis in North America has increased dramatically over the past 150 years, and it was suspected that this represented an invasion by an alien population, probably from Europe (Tewksbury et al., 2002).”
• Do Alien Plants Reduce Insect Biomass? (2004, background): “Terrestrial birds, for example, may be particularly vulnerable to plant-induced reductions in insect populations because 96% of all terrestrial birds in North America rear young on insect protein (Dickin-son 1999).”
• Comparing Invasive Plants from Their Native and Exotic Range: What Can We Learn for Biological Control?1 (2004, background): “In some instances, specialist herbivores have been accidentally introduced into the exotic range along with the invasive plant (Syrett et al. 1999; Tewksbury et al. 2002).”
• Litter legacy increases the competitive advantage of invasive Phragmites australis in New England wetlands (2011, background): “mixed plant community, we suspect that litter removal also enhanced the quality of this wetland habitat for higher trophic level species, including birds, invertebrates and mammals whose foraging may be altered by the thick litter matrix (Benoit and Askins 1999; Warren et al. 2001) and insects that ”
• The Runaway Weed: Costs and Failures of Phragmites australis Management in the USA (2013, background): “australis suppression using these techniques has led researchers to explore alternative control methods, including biocontrol (Tewksbury et al. 2002).”
• Biological Flora of the British Isles: Phragmites australis (2017, background): “More invertebrates have been recorded on P. australis throughout Europe (137 species, including 26 monophagous species; Table 9, Tscharntke 1999; Tewksbury et al. 2002) than within the British Isles (108 species).”
• Host range of Tetramesa romana Walker (Hymenoptera: Eurytomidae), a potential biological control of giant reed, Arundo donax L. in North America (2009, background): “Steudel as an adventive species in North America and is regarded as monophagous (Tewksbury et al., 2002).”