Institut für nationale und internationale Angelegenheiten der Pflanzengesundheit
Attacks of many quarantine wood-boring beetles can go on unnoticed for some time due to larvae living inside the host trees. Only when trees start to develop symptoms or the number of adults is large enough, an outbreak may be noticed. However, pest eradication is more likely to succeed the earlier that pest detection is accomplished. During detection surveys and also while managing outbreaks, it can be beneficial to combine several types of survey or diagnostic methods in order to increase the likelihood of finding the pest. A complementary approach to trapping is surveillance for boreholes, exit holes and/or larval tunnels and galleries in trees that are indicative of the presence of a pest. In the case where pest exit holes or larval tunnels/galleries are not very characteristic and larvae are no longer present in the tree, other traces of the pest, such as frass, can frequently be encountered. In such scenarios, frass analysis that allows identification of the pest that has deposited the frass would be a valuable support tool for risk management and NPPOs. In addition, such analysis is a non-destructive method for testing the presence of a pest on living trees. The three most species-rich families of wood-boring beetles are longhorn beetles (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae), bark beetles and weevils (Coleoptera: Scolytinae and Curculionidae, respectively), and metallic flat-headed borers (Coleoptera: Buprestidae). Each of these families has one or more representatives that fall under the EU quarantine regulations and in this transnational project, our goal is to evaluate existing frass-based identification methods of selected EU quarantine beetle species. Agrilus planipennis (Buprestidae): A1 quarantine pest, priority pest according to Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/1702 Aromia bungii (Cerambycidae): A1 quarantine pest, priority pest according to Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/1702 Pityophthorus juglandis (Scolytinae): A2 quarantine species; Union quarantine pest pest according Commission Delegated Regulation Annex II Part B (EU) 2019/2072For the above mentioned species, we will collaborate with transnational partners and have formulated following objectives: 1. provide an overview of all frass-based identification methods that are published or are being developed for these three targeted species 2. obtain frass from the three targeted species and untargeted (native) related species 3. validate and optimize existing frass-based identification methods 4. generate identification protocols that can be used by (National Reference) laboratories
Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture
