WG 1.5 – Agricultural and Forestry Pests and Their Parasitoids

Chair: Robert Foottit
Senior Scientist, Agriculture and Agri-food Canada,
Ottawa, Canada

Vice-chair: Jean-Yves Rasplus
Director of Research,
Institut Nationale de la recherche Agronomique, France

Insect pests are a major cause of lost production in agriculture and forestry. In cases of pest outbreaks, the rapid identification of the causal organism is critical for the implementation of control strategies.

Work will also be directed towards the assembly of a barcode library for those parasitoid species that are either important in controlling pest outbreaks or in biological control. Despite the broad range of groups involved, a reference library with barcode records for 25,000 species will provide a very effective pest-parasitoid identification system.

Species targets
True bugs – 5,000
Earwigs – 100
Grasshoppers – 500
Lacewings & kin – 500
Mantises – 100
Parasitic flies – 3,000
Parasitis hymenoptera – 8,000
Pest flies – 2,000
Predatory beetles – 4.000
Sawflies – 700
Stick insects – 100
Thrips – 1,000

Total – 25,000