We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
DISRUPTION OF WEED BIOLOGICAL CONTROL BY AN OPPORTUNISTIC MIRID PREDATOR.
- Authors
Hunt-Joshi, Tamarli R.; Root, Richard B.; Blossey, Bernd
- Abstract
The article discusses biological control of weeds. A major premise of weed biological control is that specialist herbivores released as biological control agents into the introduced range of their host plants are freed from top-down suppression by specialist predators and parasites prevalent in their native range. Often, this release from predation allows herbivores to rapidly increase their populations, causing heavy damage and resulting in successful biological control. However, native or introduced generalist predators present in introduced ranges of invasive plants may exploit newly introduced herbivores as prey. Generalist predation is infrequently studied in weed biological control, despite anecdotal evidence indicating that opportunistic predators can limit survival and establishment of introduced herbivores. Although biological control herbivores are free from specialist predators and parasites, they are still vulnerable to generalist predators inhabiting release sites, and thus have a major potential to disrupt efforts to control plant invasions. A few biological control studies document predation by ants, and a more recent study examines predation by birds and spiders.
- Subjects
WEED control; BIOLOGICAL weed control; PREDATION; HERBIVORES; INVASIVE plants; PREDATORY animals
- Publication
Ecological Applications, 2005, Vol 15, Issue 3, p861
- ISSN
1051-0761
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1890/04-1336