Mark Hoddle
Protecting Our Plants from Unwanted Visitors
UCR entomologist and researcher Mark Hoddle has an important
job-protecting us from illegal immigrants of the insect variety. These non-native pests, ranging from the exotic cottony cushion, black, red and San Jose scales, to less spectacular mealybugs, whiteflies and aphids,
come into this country riding on fruits
and vegetables. Imported pests can cause significant economic and environmental
damage. In California, these creatures have ravaged farm
crops, while others such as the
Africanized honey bee now threaten the state's urban areas.
Dr. Hoddle is UCR's Extension Specialist in biological control, a key role for a land-grant university. His research addresses biological control, which introduces natural enemies from the home range of destructive pests to suppress noxious invasive populations to levels which are no longer damaging to the environment or causing economic losses.
Recently, Hoddle helped virtually eradicate the glassy-winged sharpshooter, a major agricultural pest on several South Pacific Ocean islands. The research team introduced a microscopic parasitic wasp into an ecosystem suffering from the sharpshooter. The wasp renews its population by laying eggs inside the sharpshooter eggs, preventing the sharpshooters from hatching. The method is cost effective and brought permanent control of the sharpshooter to Tahiti and neighboring islands.
As director of the Center for Invasive Species Research, Hoddle and his colleagues are taking forward-looking approaches to managing pest and disease invasions. The long-term goal of the Center is to develop a systematic method for dealing with exotic pests in risk assessment, early detection, and rapid development of control or eradication measures. Ultimately, they expect to research and adopt methods of transgenic biological manipulations to additionally suppress pest populations.
Read about the efforts to wipe out the glassy-winged sharpshooter in Tahiti.
