Scientists discover hybrid swarm in global mega-pest
CANBERRA: CSIRO scientists haveconfirmedthehybridisation of two of the world’s major pest species, into a new and improved mega-pest.
One of the pests, the cotton bollworm, is widespread in Africa, Asia and Europe and causes damage to over 100 crops, including corn, cotton, tomato and soybean.
The damage and controlling the pest costs billions of dollars a year.
It is extremely mobile and has developed resistance to all pesticides used against it.
The other pest, the corn earworm, is a native of the Americas and has comparatively limited resistance and host range.
However, the combination of the two, in a novel hybrid with unlimited geographical boundaries is cause for major concern.
The CSIRO researchers in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the US provides clear evidence of the hybridisation of the two moths across the oceans in Brazil.
“A hybrid such as this could go completely undetected should it invade another country. It is critical that we look beyond our own backyard to help fortify Australia’s defence and response to biosecurity threats,” Research Director leading CSIRO’s Biosecurity Risk Evaluation and Preparedness Program Dr Paul De Barro said. “As Australia’s national science agency, we are constantly looking for new ways to protect the nation and technology like genome sequencing, is helping to tip the scales in our favour.”
While a combination of insecticides currently controls these pests well in Australia, it is important to study the pests themselves for sustainable longterm management world-wide.
The scientists confirmed that among the group of caterpillars studied, every individual was a hybrid.
“No two hybrids were the same suggesting a ‘hybrid swarm’ where multiple versions of different hybrids can be present within one population,” fellow CSIRO Scientist Dr Tom Walsh said. — CSIRO News