Hawaiian agriculture officials said they want to bring in wasps from Taiwan and Tanzania to kill invasive pests brought to the islands.
KITV in Honolulu said the state's Department of Agriculture's Plant and Pest Control Branch is seeking permission to breed the two wasps. One of the wasps would kill off stinging nettle caterpillars, while the other would kill a similar wasp that is killing wiliwili and coral trees by laying its eggs on the leafs of the trees.
Plant Pest Control officials said they have spent more than a year studying the predatory wasp, which is devastating the state's plant life.
Copyright 2008 by United Press International
Related stories:
Research team uses tiny wasp to wipe out major agricultural pest in Tahiti
A research team led by Mark Hoddle, a biological control specialist at UC Riverside, has nearly eradicated the glassy-winged sharpshooter, a major agricultural pest, from the island of Tahiti and several other French Polynesian islands in the South Pacific Ocean. To achieve total pest suppression, the researchers used biological control, an inexpensive method that provides permanent control and can be applied to areas where the sharpshooter has become a nuisance.
Chemical exchanges show wasps are bad losers
Wasps have more than just a sting in their tail according to new research published this week in the
Proceedings of the Royal Society B, they also carry the insect version of pepper spray in their heads, which they can release when fighting other wasps. The research not only gives us a fascinating insight into insect behaviour but could also help us to use wasps to kill crop destroying pests.
Gene breakthrough heralds better prospect for malaria solution
Scientists have made a major breakthrough in understanding the genetics of the insect parasite that is being targeted by researchers as a way of preventing the spread of malaria.
Tiny Wasp Saves Pacific Island Paradise
It was a tourist bureau’s nightmare. A plant-killing invasive insect establishes a beachhead on a Pacific island paradise and quickly spreads, leaving tourists and locals who stroll down tree-lined promenades drenched in bug urine.
Cooperation between figs, wasps and parasites proves 3 is not always a crowd
This week in the online open-access journal
PLoS Biology, scientists Simon Segar, James Cook, Derek Dunn, and colleagues at the University of Reading have found that during mutualism, a cooperative relationship between two different species, a third parasitic species may help to keep the relationship stable.
Eat up all of your Brussels sprouts -- unless you're an aphid
Aphids that eat Brussels sprouts are smaller than normal and live in undersized populations, which has a negative knock-on effect up the food chain according to new research published today in
Science.
Probing Question: Why are flowers beautiful?
In the 1930s, American artist Georgia O'Keefe wrote: "What is my experience of the flower if it is not color?" O'Keefe is best known for her vibrantly colorful close-ups of petals and stamens on large canvases.
3-D fruit fly images to benefit brain research
The fragile head and brain of a fly are not easy things to examine but MRC scientists have figured out how to make it a little simpler. And they hope their research will shed light on human disease.