The role of chemical ecology in widening the biosecurity tool kit

An increasing burden of invasive species threatens food production, human health and natural ecosystems worldwide. Surveillance for detecting and delimiting such unwanted organisms can be done most efficiently through the use of trapping programmes based on pheromones and other attractants, and an increasing use of traps is forecast for this purpose. However, it only makes sense to conduct such surveillance if eradication or containment is possible, and not all tools acceptable for pest management can be used in an eradication. Many incursions are detected in urban environments where limited property access and human opposition to aerially-applied technologies can provide substantial barriers to success. Pheromone-based technologies such as mating disruption or lure and kill, as well as the sterile insect technique, can provide suppression and limit non-target impacts for some pest groups. An increasing use of these tactics derived from a sound knowledge of chemical ecology offers the chance to mitigate the impacts of invasive species. Examples will be given of new tactics targeting this problem, such as mobile mating disruption (release of sterile medflies treated with micro-encapsulated female moth sex pheromone) and trail pheromone disruption against ants.