Barbara I. P. Barratt

AgResearch

There has been considerable debate on risks associated with biological control, and partly resulting from this, research has addressed a number of questions which have subsequently led to a greater understanding of risk assessment and biosafety. Controversy which arose in the 1980s about the environmental safety of biological control initially crea...

The Moroccan ecotype of the braconid parasitoid Microctonus aethiopoides was introduced into New Zealand for biological control of the lucerne pest Sitona discoideus. The parasitoid also attacks several non-target native weevil species found in pasture and also to a lesser extent in native tussock grassland. We carried out a series of laboratory an...

Listronotus bonariensis (Argentine stem weevil) is a stem-boring weevil that has become a major pasture pest in New Zealand, and cool climate turf grass in Australia. This species is also frequently found in native tussock grassland in New Zealand. Laboratory and field trials were established to determine the risk posed to both seedlings and establ...

Classical and augmentative biological control of insect pests and weeds has enjoyed a long history of successes. However, biocontrol practices have not been as universally accepted or optimally utilised as they could be. An International Organisation for Biological Control (IOBC) initiative brought together practitioners and researchers from widely...

Characterising plant‐herbivore interactions is important to understanding the processes that influence community structure and ecosystem functioning. Traditional methods used to identify plant‐herbivore interactions are being superseded by non‐destructive molecular approaches that can infer interactions with greater resolution and accuracy from env...

Changes in biodiversity reflect processes acting on the success of individual species at multiple spatial scales, including in communities, biogeographic regions, and globally. This complexity makes it difficult to analyse the mechanisms shaping diversity change using traditional approaches. To resolve this, we propose a novel approach to partition...

The third objective of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the use of genetic resources was further developed when the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing came into effect in 2014. Interpretation of how this agreement is being implemented is wide-ranging and there are implicati...

The Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) was implemented to further develop the third objective of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources. Interpretation of this agreement is wide-ranging and there is concern that if ABS measures are poorl...

Areas of uncertainty in the assessment of risks and benefits in applications for new biological control agents submitted to the regulator for proposed introduction into New Zealand were identified. This was done with the aim of informing future research priorities which might be able to address and reduce these areas of uncertainty to assist decisi...

The ecological impacts of invasive mammals are widely documented around the world. In New Zealand, fencing designed to exclude non-native mammals is used for conservation and restoration efforts. The Orokonui Ecosanctuary is a 307-hectare coastal Otago reserve (Dunedin, New Zealand) that is surrounded by mammal-exclusion fencing. The goal of the pr...

A ‘relative risk score’ approach to help determine the potential impact of biological control agents on non-target species, previously proposed for weed biocontrol agents and aphid parasitoids, was examined in a retrospective study for Microctonus spp. parasitoids introduced to control pest weevils in New Zealand. ‘Relative risk scores’ (% parasiti...

New Zealand’s economically vital exotic pastures are unique in their low complexity making them highly susceptible to invasive pest species such as the Argentine stem weevil Listronotus bonariensis. This field-based contribution further examined the ecology of the adult weevil and its parasitoid control agent Microctonus hyperodae. This included fa...

Nature-based management aims to improve sustainable agroecosystem production, but its efficacy has been variable. We argue that nature-based agroecosystem management could be significantly improved by explicitly considering and manipulating the underlying networks of species interactions. A network perspective can link species interactions to ecosy...

This datasheet on Radumeris tasmaniensis covers Identity, Overview, Distribution, Diagnosis, Biology & Ecology, Impacts, Uses, Prevention/Control, Further Information.

Classical biological control, the introduction of natural enemies to new environments to control unwanted pests or weeds, is, despite numerous successful examples, associated with rising concerns about unwanted environmental impacts such as population decline of nontarget species. Recognition of these biosafety risks is globally increasing, and pre...

For both New Zealand and China, agriculture is integral to the economy, supporting primary production in both intensive and extensive farming systems. Grasslands have important ecosystem and biodiversity functions, as well providing valuable grazing for livestock. However, production and persistence of grassland and forage species (e.g. alfalfa) is...

Herbivores may facilitate or impede exotic plant invasion, depending on their direct and indirect interactions with exotic plants relative to co-occurring natives. However, previous studies investigating direct effects have mostly used pairwise native-exotic comparisons with few enemies, reached conflicting conclusions, and largely overlooked indir...

Due to typesetting errors, Table 5 was not displayed correctly in the initial online publication. The original online article has been corrected.

A ‘relative risk score’ approach to help determine the potential impact of biological control agents on non-target species, previously proposed for weed biocontrol agents and aphid parasitoids, was examined in a retrospective study for Microctonus spp. parasitoids introduced to control pest weevils in New Zealand. ‘Relative risk scores’ (% parasiti...

Exotic generalist arthropod biological control agents (GABCAs) have been historically marginalized in classical and augmentative biological control due to their broad diet breadth, but an increasing demand for a more sustainable pest control is encouraging their reconsideration. This special issue compiles a collection of papers revealing that risk...

Environmental risk assessments (ERAs) are required before utilizing exotic arthropods for biological control (BC). Present ERAs focus on exposure analysis (host/prey range) and have resulted in approval of many specialist exotic biological control agents (BCA). In comparison to specialists, generalist arthropod BCAs (GABCAs) have been considered in...

Environmental risk assessments (ERAs) are required before utilizing exotic arthropods for biological control (BC). Present ERAs focus on exposure analysis (host/prey range) and have resulted in approval of many specialist exotic biological control agents (BCA). In comparison to specialists, generalist arthropod BCAs (GABCAs) have been considered in...

The article title was incomplete in the initial online publication. The original article has been corrected.

New Zealand’s indigenous and productive ecosystems are highly vulnerable to invasive species: therefore, New Zealand has stringent biosecurity legislation which encompasses the introduction of new biological control agents. To introduce a new agent, an application is made to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA). The risk assessment carried...

Indirect effects of biological control agents (BCAs) are difficult to assess because they are mediated through the complex connections between species within the ecological community. Being able to visualise such complex connections by constructing qualitative food webs could greatly enhance our ability to predict indirect effects that could then b...

Invasive stink bugs (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) are responsible for high economic losses to agriculture on a global scale. The most important species, dating from recent to old invasions, include Bagrada hilaris (Burmeister), Halyomorpha halys (Stål), Piezodorus guildinii (Westwood), Nezara viridula (L.), and Murgantia histrionica (Hahn). Bagrada hil...

New Zealand's intensive pastures, comprised almost entirely introduced Lolium L. and Trifolium L. species, are arguably the most productive grazing-lands in the world. However, these areas are vulnerable to destructive invasive pest species. Of these, three of the most damaging pests are weevils (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) that have relatively rece...

In an enclosed glasshouse with sucrose provisioned artificial flowers, we observed nectar-foraging bumble bees and honey bees under several resource conditions to determine potential for displacement. Different responses were displayed for varying resource treatments. Overall, bumble bees did not show reduced foraging in the presence of honey bees....

Fire is known to cause severe and protracted reductions in some invertebrate communities. Amphipods are prone to desiccation and, therefore, litter removal through fire could be expected to have a significant adverse impact on their populations. We aimed to determine the temporal and spatial response patterns in density of amphipods following seaso...

Effective surveillance for early detection of invasive alien species in natural ecosystems, or on valued plants found in modified areas, could prevent potentially devastating and costly impacts (whether environmental, economic or cultural) of new invasions on the invaded country. Surveillance technologies are often constrained by a range of factors...

The Australian redback spider, Latrodectus hasseltii preys on at least 10 endemic species in New Zealand, highlighting a need for control. Male redbacks are attracted to virgin females by an airborne pheromone. The aim of this study was to analyse the response of male redback spiders to two volatile chemicals found on the silk of virgin but not mat...

The invertebrate pests most commonly affecting New Zealand’s pastoral-based production in ‘average’ years cause losses of between $1.7B and $2.3B p.a. of which up to $0.9B occur on sheep and beef farms and $1.4B on dairy farms. The native scarab grass grub is the most costly pest causing losses of $140–380 M on dairy farms and $75–205 M on sheep an...

Focussed searches were made across New Zealand between 2013 and 2016, for endemic aphids from the Schizaphis (Rhopalosiphina) genus, which is currently represented by two putative, undescribed species from the endemic host plants Aciphylla and Dracophyllum. Cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) gene sequences (48 in total) from the Schizaphis were analysed...

A computer-based tool (PRONTI; Priority Ranking Of Non-Target Invertebrates) has been developed to assist the selection of invertebrate species for risk-assessment testing with entomophagous biological control agents (BCAs). PRONTI was used to produce a prioritised list of taxa for host-range testing with the braconid parasitoid Eadya daenerys, a p...

Curculionidae are a large mainly herbivorous family of beetles, some of which have become crop pests. Classical biological control has been attempted for about 38 species in 19 genera, and at least moderate success has been achieved in 31 % of cases. Only two weevil species have been considered to be completely controlled by a biological control ag...

Worldwide, studies of interactions between introduced and native bees have produced contradictory evidence regarding the potential for competition. Different resource requirements and the impact of tongue length on resource use are often overlooked aspects of these studies. Here, we examine floral resource use and niche overlap between introduced s...

The Editor-in-Chief has retracted this article [1] because the three studies included in the meta-analysis [2,3 and 4] (cited as references 16, 17 and 18) have been retracted due to concerns regarding the data, which has rendered the results of this meta-analysis invalid.

While introduced plants often have restricted distributions at high elevations, their impacts may be more extensive if they compete for native pollinators, potentially reducing pollinator services to native biotically pollinated plants. Conversely, introduced biotically pollinated plants might facilitate improved pollinator services to native plant...

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) acknowledges the sovereign rights that countries have over their ‘genetic resources’. The Nagoya Protocol that came into force in 2014 provides a framework for the implementation of a fair and equitable process by which access to genetic resources, and sharing of benefits from use between donor and recip...

This proceedings contains papers dealing with issues affecting biological control, particularly pertaining to the use of parasitoids and predators as biological control agents. This includes all approaches to biological control: conservation, augmentation, and importation of natural enemy species for the control of arthropod targets, as well as oth...

This proceedings contains papers dealing with issues affecting biological control, particularly pertaining to the use of parasitoids and predators as biological control agents. This includes all approaches to biological control: conservation, augmentation, and importation of natural enemy species for the control of arthropod targets, as well as oth...

This proceedings contains papers dealing with issues affecting biological control, particularly pertaining to the use of parasitoids and predators as biological control agents. This includes all approaches to biological control: conservation, augmentation, and importation of natural enemy species for the control of arthropod targets, as well as oth...

Management of pests (insects, weeds, diseases) has increasingly involved selection and integration of a range of methods customized for the system in which it will be used. Biological control using beneficial organisms is one component of Integrated Pest Management offering a natural and sustainable element which is in itself generally low-input. A...

Interactions between invasive species can be difficult to predict and can result in unanticipated impacts of significance for native fauna. Here we show that introduced European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) create habitat that enables invasive redback spiders (Latrodectus hasselti Thorell, 1870) to establish and prey upon the nationally endanger...

The Nagoya Protocol is a supplementary agreement to the Convention on Biological Diversity that provides a framework for the effective implementation of the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources, including invertebrate biological control agents. The Protocol came into force on 12 October 2014, an...

Scats from tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) were investigated in autumn at Ōrokonui Ecosanctuary on South Island, New Zealand. Eighty-seven tuatara had been translocated there 5–7 months previously, either directly from Stephens Island/Takapourewa or via captivity. Tuatara at Ōrokonui fed on diverse invertebrates, including beetles, millipedes, spider...

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...

To protect productive grasslands from pests and diseases, effective pre- and atborder planning and interventions are necessary. Biosecurity failure inevitably requires expensive and difficult eradication, or long-term and often quite ineffective management strategies. This is compared to the early intervention more likely for sectors where there is...

A computer-based tool called PRONTI (priority ranking of non-target invertebrates) has been developed to aid the selection of non-target species (NTS) for pre-release testing with entomophagous biological control agents. To test whether PRONTI can improve NTS selection, we used it to produce a prioritised list of NTS for the agent Cotesia urabae Au...

Concern about the environmental biosafety of transgenic plants could be mitigated by the development of robust testing methods and selection of appropriate non-target (NT) test species. White clover (Trifolium repens L.) plants with either high or low hydrogen cyanide (HCN) levels were used as surrogate transgenic insecticidal and control plants, r...

Private gardens comprise a large proportion of urban green space and can contain diverse and structurally complex vegetation, typically dominated by exotic species, but potentially providing resources for a diverse invertebrate fauna. We determined how much beetle diversity and community structure were influenced by vegetation composition and struc...

A dataset of 3,250,404 measurements, collated from 26,114 sampling locations in 94 countries and representing 47,044 species. The data were collated from 480 existing spatial comparisons of local-scale biodiversity exposed to different intensities and types of anthropogenic pressures, from terrestrial sites around the world. The database was assemb...

Listronotus bonariensis (Argentine stem weevil) is a stem-boring weevil that has become a major pest of pasture in New Zealand, and cool climate turf grass in Australia. This species is also frequently found in native tussock grassland in New Zealand. Laboratory and field trials were established to determine the risk posed to both seedlings and est...

The ecto-parasitic mite Varroa destructor invaded New Zealand in the year 2000 and has since spread throughout the country. Feral honey bee (Apis mellifera) populations have likely suffered dramatic losses as a result, and the consequent plant community and insect interaction effects are unknown. Although honey bees are thought to compete with nati...

tInvertebrates are a neglected but important component of urban ecosystems. Although cities are a het-erogeneous landscape most studies of urban invertebrates focus on specific habitat fragment types. Wemodeled the resource selection of an undescribed species of Onychophora – the Dunedin peripatus –at multiple scales across an urban gradient in the...

Australian redback spiders (Latrodectus hasseltii Thorell, 1870) are invasive, opportunistic predators that threaten New Zealand fauna. Initially recorded in Central Otago in 1981, they were observed in 2012 preying on the endemic, nationally endangered Cromwell chafer beetle (Prodontria lewisii Broun, 1904) in the species’ last occupied habitat, t...

The Varroa mite (Varroa destructor) is implicated as a major disease factor in honey bee (Apis mellifera) populations worldwide. Honey bees are extensively relied upon for pollination services, and in countries such as New Zealand and Australia where honey bees have been introduced specifically for commercial pollinator services, the economic effec...

Two curculionid weevils, Orthochaetes setiger (Beck, 1817) and Exomias pellucidus (Boheman, 1834) are recorded in New Zealand for the first time. The former has a wide distribution through the eastern South Island, while the latter has so far only been located in a single suburban garden in Dunedin. Both species are polyphagous and flightless. Alth...

1. Invertebrate biodiversity was investigated in 55 domestic gardens in the city of Dunedin in southern New Zealand. The influence of habitat types within the gardens (lawns, open beds, and closed canopy beds) on invertebrate community structure was investigated by pitfall trapping. Species richness and diversity of Coleoptera, the proportion of na...

As post-disturbance community response depends on the characteristics of the ecosystem and the species composition, so does the invasion of exotic species rely on their suitability to the new environment. Here, we test two hypotheses: exotic spider species dominate the community after burning; and two traits are prevalent for their colonisation abi...

Fossil evidence for the evolutionary history of terrestrial arthropods in New Zealand is extremely limited; only six pre-Quaternary insects (Triassic to Eocene) have been recorded previously, none of Miocene age. The Foulden Maar fossil lagersttte in Otago has now yielded a diverse arthropod assemblage, including members of the Araneae, Plecoptera,...

SOCIAL BEES IN NEW ZEALAND: FORAGING INTERACTIONS & IMPLICATIONS FOR COMMUNITIES Jay Iwasaki1,2, Barbara Barratt 1,3, Alison Mercer 2, Janice Lord 1, Katharine Dickinson 1 1Department of Botany, The University of Otago, 2Department of Zoology, The University of Otago, 3AgResearch Invermay Worldwide, honey bees (Apis mellifera) are extensively uti...

Introduced and native flowering plants compete not only for abiotic resources, but can also compete for services in mutualisms such as biotic pollination. New Zealand’s flora comprises approximately 50% introduced flowering plant species and many have established in alpine and montane areas forming novel communities. Pollination in alpine New Zeala...

Selection of test species for use in biosafety evaluation of genetically modified plants is challenging but important, as regulators in many jurisdictions require tests to determine the potential for adverse environmental impacts before the release of plants into the environment. This contribution provides an example of an evidence-based process wh...

Restoration programs for human-disturbed ecosystems rely on a good understanding of how recovery occurs. This requires elucidating the underlying succession process, which depends on species adaptations, their interactions, and the spatiotemporal characteristics of the disturbance. Using spiders, we aim to identify the drivers of succession after b...

The frequently strong morphological similarities that exist between the larvae of congeneric scarab beetles are likely to lead to misidentification of field-collected specimens of sympatric species. This is the case for the New Zealand endemic pasture pest Costelytra zealandica (White, 1846) (Scarabaeidae: Melolonthinae) and the closely related non...