Reducing Southern Pine Beetle Populations

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project proposes to field test the hypothesis thatpopulations of Southern Pine Beetle (SPB), the single most important insect pest of southern pineforests, can be reduced by supplying food to their hymenopterous parasitoids (a new technique for theaugmentation of biological control). We will measure changes in population abundance of both SPBand their parasitoids when parasitoid food is applied to trees in SPB infested forests. Our laboratorystudies demonstrate that the adults of the six most common species of SPB parasitoids live longer andproduce more eggs when food is provided. Parasitoid larvae feed on SPB larvae. In these field testswe will evaluate the potential for reducing SPB populations in the forest with food applications. Theinformation from these experiments will determine whether or not large scale demonstrations of foodapplications for SPB population control should be conducted.