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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Fort Lauderdale, Florida » Invasive Plant Research Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #208765
Title: Developing Biological Control Options for Old World climbing fern, Lygodium microphyllum – Releases of a Biocontrol Agent and Upcoming Plans

Author
item Boughton, Anthony
item Pemberton, Robert

Submitted to: Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/20/2007
Publication Date: 5/3/2007
Citation: Boughton, A.J., Pemberton, R.W. 2007. Developing Biological Control Options for Old World climbing fern, Lygodium microphyllum – Releases of a Biocontrol Agent and Upcoming Plans. Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council.

Interpretive Summary: Old World Climbing fern, Lygodium microphyllum is native to S.E. Asia and Australia, and is a serious invasive weed in southern Florida. L. microphyllum has a climbing habit and grows rapidly in southern Florida, climbing over native plants, denying them light and untimely displacing them from natural areas. Over one hundred thousand acres of public and private land in south Florida are already infested with L. microphyllum and hundreds of thousands more acres are at risk of infestation. L. microphyllum poses a substantial threat to native plants and ecosystems and had proved extremely difficult to manage. Herbicide treatments and mechanical control are not effective at preventing longterm regrowth of L. microphyllum, and are too expensive to be used on the huge areas that are currently infested. In addition, no native insect or arthropod herbivores have been identified feeding on L. microphyllum, so the fern is not subject to the feeding pressures which typically help to regulate populations of plants within their home range. This has left many people looking to biological control to provide a solution to this problem. The USDA-ARS Invasive Plant Research Laboratory in Fort Lauderdale is completing it’s third year of field releases of Austromusotima camptozonale (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) – a defoliating caterpillar from S.E. Asia that was the first candidate biological control agent approved for release against L. microphyllum. The results of these releases are discussed together with release plans for a herbivorous mite that is the next candidate agent for release against L. microphyllum.

Technical Abstract: Old World Climbing fern, Lygodium microphyllum is native to S.E. Asia and Australia, and is a serious invasive weed in southern Florida. L. microphyllum has a climbing habit and grows rapidly in southern Florida, climbing over native plants, denying them light and untimely displacing them from natural areas. Over one hundred thousand acres of public and private land in south Florida are already infested with L. microphyllum and hundreds of thousands more acres are at risk of infestation. L. microphyllum poses a substantial threat to native plants and ecosystems and had proved extremely difficult to manage. Herbicide treatments and mechanical control are not effective at preventing longterm regrowth of L. microphyllum, and are too expensive to be used on the huge areas that are currently infested. In addition, no native insect or arthropod herbivores have been identified feeding on L. microphyllum, so the fern is not subject to the feeding pressures which typically help to regulate populations of plants within their home range. This has left many people looking to biological control to provide a solution to this problem. The USDA-ARS Invasive Plant Research Laboratory in Fort Lauderdale is completing it’s third year of field releases of Austromusotima camptozonale (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) – a defoliating caterpillar from S.E. Asia that was the first candidate biological control agent approved for release against L. microphyllum. The results of these releases are discussed together with release plans for a herbivorous mite that is the next candidate agent for release against L. microphyllum.