1. Ask your doctor if Biological Control is right for you
Paul Pratt
USDA-ARS
Invasive Plant Research Laboratory
Fort Lauderdale, Florida

2. Australia
Pathogens
Insects
Koalas
Melaleuca
Suitable environment

3. Florida
Insects
Pathogens
Melaleuca
Suitable environment

4. Approach: The “pipeline”

5. Melaleuca Weevil: Oxyops vitiosa

6. Melaleuca Weevil: Oxyops vitiosa
Feed on tender flush
Eggs

7. Melaleuca Weevil: Oxyops vitiosa
Larvae

8. Weevil damage

9. Oxyops vitiosa The first melaleuca bioagent introduced
Doesn’t thrive in permanently flooded sites
Spreading at a rate of 1 km/yr
Now released at >150 sites

10. Melaleuca Psyllid: Boreioglycaspis melaleucae
Adults
Nymphs
Egg

11. Flocculence – white waxy byproduct
Psyllid feeding damage

12. Melaleuca psyllid The second melaleuca bioagent introduced
Not influenced by water levels
>700,000 redistributed
Now released at >90 sites
Spreading at a rate of 7 km/yr

13. Do I have bugs?
Biological control agents are everywhere

14. Integrated Melaleuca Management
How to use the biological control agents most effectively?

15. reduces flowering Reduces seed bank
Reduces recruitment after herbicide

16. kills seedlings
Limits follow-up treatments

17. Regional impacts

18. reduces regrowth from cut stumps

19. reduces regrowth from cut stumps
Combining herbivory with occasional mowing caused 80% stump mortality

20. stunts growth

21. increases vulnerability
Reduced canopy +
Repeated defoliations =
Depleted starch reserves
Vulnerable to:
Mechanical controls
Drought
Frost (low temps)

22. Integrated Melaleuca Management with Biological Control
Gives managers more time and flexibility
Reduces seed dispersal from neighboring lands
Reduced frequency of mechanical and chemical treatments
Longer time between initial and follow-up treatments
Allows managers to redirect limited funds to emerging weed problems

23. Melaleuca rust – Puccinia cidii
Introduced accidentally through ornamental trade
Attacks Myrtaceous plants including melaleuca
Attacks young leaves

24. Future biological control agents in the pipeline. . .

25. Melaleuca Bud-Gall Fly Fergusonina turneri (Fergusoninidae)

26. Melaleuca Gall Fly:

27. Galls Melaleuca Flower Buds
Ferg Damage
Galls Melaleuca Flower Buds
gall
flower

28. Ferg Damage
galls melaleuca
shoot buds, too!!

29. Melaleuca Stem-Gall Fly Lophodiplosis trifida (Cecidomyiidae)

30. Cecid Damage
Galls Melaleuca Stems

32. Accelerating the Program: New Quarantine Facility for Screening Biological Control Agents