PLANT PROTECTION 1 – Pests, Diseases and Weeds

PLANT PROTECTION 1 – Pests, Diseases and Weeds
PLANT
DAMAGE
DIRECT CHEWING DAMAGE.
Larvae cause most plant damage. Occasionally adult ants will eat leaves.
LEAVES Chewing damage, eg steelblue sawfly, callistemon sawfly,
cypress pine sawfly
Skeletonization, eg pear and cherry slug, elm leaf beetle
Leaf mining, eg leafblister sawfly
Galls, eg many wasp galls found on native plants, eg eucalypts,
wattles
STEMS Galls, eg citrus gall wasp
TRUNKS
Borers, eg sirex wasp
LIST OF SOME
SPECIES
Fire ants are
notifiable
pests in some
states/territories
Honey
bees
Not known
in Australia
Not established
in Australia
Not known
in Australia
There are about 1500
species of native bees
Not known in
mainland Australia
INDIRECT DAMAGE.
Wasps may spoil ripe fruit.
Commercial damage is caused when pollinated flowers start to wither.
Ants may transfer young scale and other insects to new feeding sites.
The entrance to some ant nests is surrounded by a mound of soil disfiguring
turf, paths, etc.
Adult leafcutting bees use their legs to cut away portions of leaves to line
their nests.
OTHER EFFECTS.
Ants, bees and wasps may aggressively sting humans, eg European wasp.
Bees introduced to increase pollination of certain crops may displace native
bees
COMMON NAME SCIENTIFIC NAME PEST STATUS/HOST RANGE/
(not exhaustive)
ANTS (Family Formicidae)
www.ento.csiro.au/science/ants/
Argentine ant Linepithema humile World’s worst ant pest.
Bigheaded African ant Pheidole magacephala Major threat to NT rainforests
including Kakadu NationalPark,
displace native ant population
Crazy ants
Anoplolepsis gracilipes
(Christmas Island, NT, Qld)
Environmental pest, can be a
minor agriculture pest. Decimate
red crabs on Christmas Island
Funnel ants Aphaenogaster spp. Create a mound around the
entrance to the nest
Seedharvesting ants Pheidole spp. Harvest seed.
Fire ant, ‘red
imported fire ant’
Solenopsis invicta
Harvest seed. Agricultural and
horticultural pest. Stings humans
and pets repeatedly. National Fire
Ant Eradication program in place
Tropical fire ant Solenopsis geminata Harvest seeds. May feed on plants,
emerging seedlings, insects and
animal matter, honeydew
BEES (Pollinators, several families)
Honey bee Apis mellifera
(European honey bee)
Africanized honey African honey bee
bee (AHB)
(Apis mellifera scutellata) x
European honey bee
(A. mellifera ssp.)
www.aussiebee.com.au/ab11.html
Nectar, introduced pollinator.
Extremely aggressive in defense
of their colony and are easily
provoked into stinging in response
to vibration.
Asian honey bee Apis cerana Is the natural host of varroa mites
which deplete honey bee colonies,
often intercepted in quarantine
Giant honeybee Apis dorsata May carry mites which are
parasitic on honeybees, often
intercepted by quarantine
Native honey bees Trigona spp. Nectar. Also called stingless
bees, sugarbag bees
Yellow-faced Bombus vosnesenskii Recent arrival, may impact native
bumblebee
flora and fauna. Could compete with
native bees for pollen and nectar
Large earth bumble
bee (in Tasmania)
Bombus terrestris
Good pollinator but may displace
some native bees. Can sting
Leafcutting bees Leafcutting bees Megachile spp. Feed on nectar, damage rose, lilac
Insects and allied pests - Hymenoptera (ants, bees, sawflies, wasps) 115