First case of successful eradication of the sweet potato weevil, Cylas formicarius (Fabricius), using the sterile insect technique.

This paper presents the first case of the successful eradication of a Coleoptera pest species over a wide area using a combination of male annihilation technique (MAT) and sterile insect technique (SIT) application. The sweet potato weevil, Cylas formicarius, is one of the most destructive and widely distributed pests of sweet potato, Ipomoea batatas. A project to eradicate it was launched in 1994 on Kume Island, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. The MAT application was first used from November 1994 to January 1999 to reduce the density of wild populations. The distribution and densities of weevils were assessed by trapping them and surveying infestation rates in wild hosts and sweet potatoes in the field. The C. formicarius populations were suppressed by approximately 90% and plant infestations were reduced from 9.5% to less than 0.1% by using the MAT. Then, hundreds of thousands to millions of sterile weevils were released each week (ca. 460 million in total from 1999 to 2012). As a result, based on an analysis of 12748 stems and 48749 tubers, no weevil infections were detected in the stems or tubers of sweet potato since 1997. Since 2009, almost no wild weevils were captured in traps, and in wild host and sweet potato surveys no weevils have been found in any of the 580 locations and 8833 samples since October 2011. As of 28 December, 2012, C. formicarius is considered to have been eradicated from Kume Island. This paper describes the process of eradicating C. formicarius using SIT application integrated with MAT application for the first time and discusses some of the main challenges associated with the weevil eradication campaignl.

Infection Density Dynamics of the Citrus Greening Bacterium "Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus" in Field Populations of the Psyllid Diaphorina citri and Its Relevance to the Efficiency of Pathogen Transmission to Citrus Plants.

Huanglongbing, or citrus greening, is a devastating disease of citrus plants recently spreading worldwide, which is caused by an uncultivable bacterial pathogen, "Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus," and vectored by a phloem-sucking insect, Diaphorina citri. We investigated the infection density dynamics of "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus" in field populations of D. citri with experiments using field-collected insects to address how "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus" infection density in the vector insect is relevant to pathogen transmission to citrus plants. Of 500 insects continuously collected from "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus"-infected citrus trees with pathological symptoms in the spring and autumn of 2009, 497 (99.4%) were "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus" positive. The infections were systemic across head-thorax and abdomen, ranging from 10(3) to 10(7) bacteria per insect. In spring, the infection densities were low in March, at ∼ 10(3) bacteria per insect, increasing up to 10(6) to 10(7) bacteria per insect in April and May, and decreasing to 10(5) to 10(6) bacteria per insect in late May, whereas the infection densities were constantly ∼ 10(6) to 10(7) bacteria per insect in autumn. Statistical analysis suggested that several factors, such as insect sex, host trees, and collection dates, may be correlated with "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus" infection densities in field D. citri populations. Inoculation experiments with citrus seedlings using field-collected "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus"-infected insects suggested that (i) "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus"-transmitting insects tend to exhibit higher infection densities than do nontransmitting insects, (ii) a threshold level (∼ 10(6) bacteria per insect) of "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus" density in D. citri is required for successful transmission to citrus plants, and (iii) D. citri attaining the threshold infection level transmits "Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus" to citrus plants in a stochastic manner. These findings provide valuable insights into understanding, predicting, and controlling this notorious citrus pathogen.

Unreliable pesticide control of the vector psyllid Diaphorina citri (Hemiptera: Psyllidae) for the reduction of microorganism disease transmission.

Systemic insecticides and application methods were examined for the control of the vector psyllid of citrus greening disease, Diaphorina citri, on grown king mandarin trees in an orchard in southern Vietnam from May 2007 to September 2008. Leaf spraying of imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, and clothianidin attained about 50 % to 70 % mortality of the psyllid for one month after the application and showed decreased efficacy thereafter. Imidacloprid was more effective than the other two insecticides, but the efficacy on grown trees was still much lower than that following application to young seedlings. Trunk injection of these insecticides accomplished similar mortality, about 50 %, and the efficacy of the insecticides continued for one month. An adjuvant was used with the goal of protecting the insecticide applied on leaves from precipitation, and mineral oil was used for the same reason, as well as its potential to control the psyllid. Neither the adjuvant nor the mineral oil played an evident role in the increase of insecticide efficacy or longevity. Application of systemic insecticides at even 50 times the dose described above did not show an apparent increase in psyllid mortality. The insecticides commonly used for the control of the psyllid were not as effective on this insect on grown trees as we had expected they would be.

Mating disruption for control of Melanotus okinawensis (Coleoptera: elateridae) with synthetic sex pheromone.

A mating disruption experiment to control Melanotus okinawensis Ohira (Coleoptera: Elateridae) was conducted at a sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) field and a wild Japanese pampas, Miscanthus sinensis Anderss, grassland on Minami-Daito Island (3,057 ha) from 2001 to 2007. The sugarcane field and the pampas grassland were treated with synthetic sex pheromone that evaporated from a polyethylene tube dispenser. The mean total catches obtained by monitoring traps in the sugarcane fields decreased by 96.1% in 2001 from the previous year on Minami-Daito Island. The mean total trap catches in the treated area further decreased by 74.0% from 2001 until 2007 as cumulative effects. Simultaneously, the number of adults captured by hand decreased from 4.7 per sugarcane field in 2001 to 0.5 in 2007 (89.3% reduction), whereas those captured in the untreated area (Miyagi Island) did not show such a decrease. The mating rates were significantly lower in the females captured in the treated area (14.3-71.4%) than those in the untreated area (96.9-100%). However, the amount of the decrease in the trap catches was relatively small at first (39.6% reduction) in the Japanese pampas grassland on the periphery of the Island. This was probably due to the loss of pheromone substance caused by the strong seasonal wind in the periphery. However, mean total trap catches at the periphery also decreased within several years; significant decreases were detected until 2003, 2006, and 2007. These results indicated that the mating disruption effectively reduced an isolated population of M. okinawensis.