About
45
Publications
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Introduction
I'm a research scientist with CABI Switzerland working in the field of risk analysis & invasion ecology.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
September 2018 - present
CABI Switzerland
Position
- Researcher
October 2016 - October 2018
Position
- PostDoc Position
Description
- I'm working together with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (as a contractor) on biological control of weeds and insects.
September 2016 - April 2018
Position
- Instructor
Description
- Teaching the courses: Stresses in the Forest Environment (graduate); Urban Forest Conservation (graduate & undergraduate) and Green Urban Infrastructure (undergraduate)
Education
September 2012 - August 2016
January 2011 - August 2012
September 2006 - April 2009
Field of study
- Forestry and Environmental Science (major); Nature Conservation and Landscape Management (minor)
Publications
Publications (45)
Thanasimus formicarius (L.) (Coleoptera: Cleridae) is an important bark beetle predator and can reduce bark beetle population densities of some of the most severe forest pests in Europe.
We analysed the population genetics and phylogeography of T. formicarius across its European range, using mitochondrial COI data from 187 individuals sampled from...
More than a century ago, a few successful pest control attempts through the intentional import and release of insects, opened the way for the practice of biological control. Since then, the shipment of beneficial insects within and between continents became common practice and was solely based on informal arrangements between researchers and practi...
In a classical biological control programme, the selection of the most efficient and safest natural enemy species is crucial. This chapter discusses the criteria used to choose parasitoids and predators for introduction to control invasive arthropod pests. These selection criteria have evolved over time and currently prioritize the natural enemy’s...
Ganaspis Foerster includes several cryptic species that are important larval parasitoids of the invasive pest Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura), spotted-wing drosophila (SWD). Drosophila suzukii, native to Asia, was first discovered in 2008 in North America and Europe, becoming a devastating pest of soft-skinned fruit crops. Biological control could b...
Facultative diapause is a life history trait that allows insects to undergo continuous development when conditions are favorable or to enter diapause when they are not. Insect voltinism can have an impact on the success of a weed-biological control agent because additional generations can increase agent population growth and reduce late-season reco...
The invasion of Cydalima perspectalis (Walker, 1859) (Lepidoptera, Crambidae) poses a significant threat to European ecosystems and North American ornamentals. In an effort to identify potential biological control agents from the native habitats of C. perspectalis, a field survey was conducted from 2022 to 2024 in South Korea. During the survey, a...
During the last decade, the spotted-wing drosophila, Drosophila suzukii, has spread from eastern Asia to the Americas, Europe, and Africa. This fly attacks many species of cultivated and wild fruits with soft, thin skins, where its serrated ovipositor allows it to lay eggs in undamaged fruit. Parasitoids from the native range of D. suzukii may prov...
The box tree moth Cydalima perspectalis (Walker) (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) (BTM) is a native moth throughout eastern Asia, having recently become invasive in Europe (2007) where it feeds on boxwood (= box tree), Buxus spp. The moth rapidly spread across Europe and the Caucasus causing damage to both ornamental and wild Buxus. In 2018, C. perspectali...
Aromia bungii Faldermann (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) is an emerging invasive pest of economically important Prunus species that is native to China, Mongolia, the Russian Far East, Korea, and Vietnam. It was recently introduced to Japan, Germany, and Italy, where it is spreading and damaging crops and ornamental trees. It exhibits an adaptable lifecy...
Marchalina hellenica Gennadius (Hemiptera: Marchalinidae) is a scale insect native to Greece and Turkey and presently invasive in Australia, where it damages pine plantations. The silver fly, Neoleucopis kartliana Tanasijtshuk (Diptera: Chamaemyiidae), is the most abundant predator of M. hellenica in Greece and is presently being investigated as a...
Non-native invasive arthropod species threaten biodiversity and food security worldwide, resulting in substantial economic, environmental, social and cultural costs. Classical biological control (CBC) is regarded as a cost-effective component of integrated pest management programmes to manage invasive arthropod pests sustainably. However, CBC progr...
Temperature plays an important role in winter diapause of temperate insects. Its effects can cause problems for biological control programs, both for the establishment of insects in novel climates and for the mass rearing of insects in the laboratory. Hypena opulenta (Christoph) (Lepidoptera: Erebidae), a biological control agent for invasive swall...
The 6/04 standard of the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organisation (EPPO) on the safe use of biological control is a decision-support scheme (DSS) for the import and release of biological control agents in Europe. It was recently developed by the Joint EPPO/International Organisation of Biological Control (IOBC) Panel on Biological C...
The silver fly Leucopis hennigrata McAlpine is a predator of the silver fir wooly adelgid, Adelges nordmannianae (Eckstein), a pest in the European production of Christmas trees. While the fly is known to be a common native predator of the adelgid in Georgia, Turkey, and central Europe, it is absent from northern Europe, where the Christmas tree pr...
Marchalina hellenica (Hemiptera: Marchalinidae), an endemic species in Greece and Turkey, is a major contributor to the annual honey production in its native range. However, in the areas that it invades, lacking natural enemies, it has detrimental effects on pine trees and potentially contributes to tree mortality. Although it was originally report...
Classical biological control, i.e., the introduction of natural enemies from an invasive pest’s area of origin, has been proposed repeatedly to control the spotted wing drosophila Drosophila suzukii in the Americas and in Europe. Results from surveys in Asia and laboratory experiments suggest the parasitoid G1 Ganaspis cf. brasiliensis as a suitabl...
Neoleucopis kartliana Tanasijtshuk (Diptera, Chamaemyiidae) is the most abundant
predator of the giant pine scale (GPS), Marchalina hellenica (Hemiptera, Margarodidae) in Greece. GPS is native to Greece and Turkey, where it is not considered a pest of Pinus spp., but a valuable resource for pine honey production. However, its introduction to new ar...
Many factors can affect the success and failure of classical biological control. However, these factors have mainly been studied independently of each other, which leaves their relative importance within the complexity of classical biological control (CBC) programmes unknown. Therefore, we set out to take a more holistic view on the factors that ma...
Les caractéristiques de Drosophila suzukii (fécondité, plantes-hôtes, nombre de génération...) en font un ravageur difficile à maîtriser en cultures fruitières, en particulier en verger de cerisier et en cultures de fruits rouges (fraise, framboise). Les solutions actuelles ne donnent pas entièrement satisfaction, du fait de contraintes techniques...
Uncertainty about the taxonomic status and the specificity of a species commonly prevent its consideration as a candidate for biological control of pest organisms. Here we use a combination of molecular analysis and crossing experiments to gather evidence that the parasitoid wasp Ganaspis brasiliensis, a candidate for biological control of the inva...
Despite their importance as mortality factors of many insects, the detailed biology and ecology of parasitoids often remain unknown. To gain insights into the spatiotemporal biology of insect parasitoids in interaction with their hosts, modeling of temperature-dependent development, reproduction, and survival is a powerful tool. In this first artic...
Many insects exhibit a short-day diapause response, whereby diapause is induced when daylength falls below a critical threshold. This response is an adaptation to ensure synchrony between periods of insect activity, and the availability of resources, but it can cause problems when organisms are moved to new locations, where early or late-induced di...
It is important to develop efficient and cost-effective methods for monitoring the establishment and fitness of biological control agents. Understanding how simple and obtainable measurements of insects or their body parts relate to reproductive life-history traits could facilitate assessing the fitness of biological control agent populations in th...
The fruit fly Drosophila suzukii has recently become an invasive pest insect of significant economic impact in Europe and the USA. In contrast to other Drosophila species, D. suzukii is able to infest intact fruit by means of a saw-like ovipositor, which allows females to deposit eggs beneath the skin of the fruit. Classical biological control usin...
Encapsulation and melanisation are innate immune reactions of insects against foreign intruders such as parasitoids. In an earlier study, we observed that immature life stages of the endoparasitoid Tranosema rostrale (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) parasitizing Choristoneura fumiferana (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) larvae experienced higher mortality due...
The effect of high temperature on the performance of the spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana) parasitoid Tranosema rostrale (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae), its polydnavirus (TrIV), and the immune reaction of its host.
The eastern spruce budworm Choristoneura fumiferana (Clemens) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) is one of the most important outbreaking defoliator in conifer forests of eastern North America. In low-density populations, the larval endoparasitoid Tranosema rostrale (Brischke) (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) is known as an important mortality factor, but rela...
The combination of biochar (BC) with compost has been suggested to be a promising strategy to promote plant growth and performance, but although “synergistic” effects have been stated to occur, full-factorial experiments are few, and explicit tests for synergism are lacking. We tested the hypothesis that a combination of BC and spent mushroom subst...
Endoparasitoids face the challenge of overcoming the immune reaction of their hosts, which typically consists of encapsulation and melanisation of parasitoid eggs or larvae. Some endoparasitic wasps such as the solitary Tranosema rostrale (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) that lay their eggs in larvae of the spruce budworm, Choristoneura fumiferana (Lep...
The temperature-dependent development and survival of immatures, as well as adult longevity and potential fecundity of the endoparasitoid Tranosema rostrale (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) parasitizing spruce budworm Choristoneura fumiferana (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) larvae was investigated under laboratory conditions at several constant temperatures...
Tranosema rostrale (Brischke) (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) is an important parasitoid of low-density spruce budworm Choristoneura fumiferana (Clemens) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) populations. To investigate the effectiveness of this parasitoid in attacking low-density spruce budworm populations, we conducted a detailed laboratory study on its reprod...
The seasonal pattern of parasitism by a parasitoid can be influenced by many factors, such as interspecific competition and host instar preference. We conducted field and laboratory experiments to describe the seasonal pattern of parasitism of spruce budworm Choristoneura fumiferana (Clemens) larvae by Tranosema rostrale (Brischke), and to investig...
Biological control has been an important tactic in the management of Canadian forests for over a century, but one that has had varied success. Here, we review the history of biological control programmes using vertebrate and invertebrate parasitoids and predators against insects in Canadian forests. Since roughly 1882, 41 insect species have been t...
Silvicultural treatments are suggested as an option for controlling insect defoliators, although the effects of treatment on parasitism remain widely unknown. Therefore, in the present study, the influence of partial cutting on hemlock looper Lambdina fiscellaria (Guenée) (Lepidoptera: Geometridae) parasitism is studied by comparing two cutting int...
Abstact During insect outbreaks, the high number of individuals feeding on its host plant causes a depletion of the food source. Reduced availability and decreased quality of nutrients negatively influences life-history traits of insects driving them to develop adaptive strategies to persist in the enviroment. In a laboratory experiment with three...
Silvicultural treatments such as thinning have been suggested as management tools against the spruce budworm, Choristoneura fumiferana (Clemens) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae). Among other things, parasitoids are also proposed to be influenced by silvicultural procedures, but the effect of thinning on spruce budworm's natural enemies has not been teste...
Artificial diet is commonly used to rear the spruce budworm, Choristoneura fumiferana (Clemens) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae), in the laboratory. While its effect on spruce budworm performance is relatively well studied, no information exists about the influence of rearing diet on larval parasitism. In this study, spruce budworm larvae reared in the l...
Questions
Questions (2)
I am involved in a project on biological control of the Comstock mealybug Pseudococcus comstocki in Switzerland. As part of this project, we are doing host specificity tests of a parasitoid and, besides P. comstocki, have tested so far the following non-target species: Pseudococcus longispinus, Planococcus citri and Phenacoccus aceris. We would like to test more species of the family Pseudococcidae and are looking for someone in Europe who could give us an identified starting colony for this purpose.
Thank you for your help!
I am performing a mixed-effects Poisson regression on count data in R and have estimates for an intercept (my control) and two factors. The estimates of the fixed effects are on the log scale, so I took the exponential of them. I am aware that this works well for the estimates but not for their standard errors, so I calculated confidence intervals on the log scale that I then back-transformed by taking the exponential. As the estimates of the fixed effects are relative to the intercept, I multiplied them by the intercept to get absolute estimates for a bar graph (estimated mean counts). But what do I do to calculate the corresponding confidence intervals?
