Frontiers | Behaviour drives contemporary evolution in a failing insect-parasitoid importation biological control programme
Biological control of pests continues to become more important in agriculture as pesticides are being withdrawn. However, successful control can be compromised by contemporary evolution. Recent work in New Zealand has shown that the once-successful biological control programme of the sexually-reproducing grassland weevil pest Listronotus bonariensis by the asexual parasitoid Microctonus hyperodae has now failed. In order to explain the mechanisms associated with this, weevil parasitism rates were intensively monitored between 1994 and 2019. Frequent sampling took place at widely-dispersed New ...
Source: frontiersin.org