Biological Control of Water Hyacinth in California's Sacramento–San

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Biological Control of Water Hyacinth in California's Sacramento–San Biocontrol Science and Technology ISSN: 0958-3157 (Print) 1360-0478 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbst20 Biological control of water hyacinth in California’s Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta: observations on establishment and spread R. Patrick Akers, Rebecca W. Bergmann & Michael J. Pitcairn To cite this article: R. Patrick Akers, Rebecca W. Bergmann & Michael J. Pitcairn (2017) Biological control of water hyacinth in California’s Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta: observations on establishment and spread, Biocontrol Science and Technology, 27:6, 755-768, DOI: 10.1080/09583157.2017.1342220 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09583157.2017.1342220 Published online: 03 Jul 2017. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 33 View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 1 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cbst20 Download by: [University of Florida] Date: 24 October 2017, At: 09:01 BIOCONTROL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 2017 VOL. 27, NO. 6, 755–768 https://doi.org/10.1080/09583157.2017.1342220 RESEARCH ARTICLE Biological control of water hyacinth in California’s Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta: observations on establishment and spread R. Patrick Akers, Rebecca W. Bergmann and Michael J. Pitcairn California Department of Food and Agriculture, Biological Control Program, Sacramento, CA, USA ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes (Martius) Solms-Laubach) is a Received 28 December 2016 serious invasive weed in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta Returned 6 June 2017 of California. Three insects: Neochetina eichhorniae Warner and Accepted 10 June 2017 Neochetina bruchi Hustache (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) and KEYWORDS Niphograpta (=Sameodes) albiguttalis (Warren) (Lepidoptera: – Neochetina bruchi; Crambidae) were released during 1982 1987 at four locations for Neochetina eichhorniae; the biological control of water hyacinth. Observations in 1985 Niphograpta albiguttalis; suggested that all three species had established. By 2002, water microsporidia hyacinth populations in the Delta still required an aggressive chemical control campaign and the status of the biological control agents was in question. In late 2002, a field survey to determine the distribution and abundance of the released insects was performed. Water hyacinth plants were collected by boat in the main water channels and from land at smaller sloughs and examined for insects. In total, 27 sites with water hyacinth distributed across the Delta were examined of which 21 had weevils. Weevil abundance ranged from 0 to 10.9 weevils per plant, with an average of 0.93 (±0.47 SEM) adult weevils per plant. All weevils (n = 518) were identified as N. bruchi.NoN. eichhorniae were recovered and no larvae or evidence of larval feeding by N. albiguttalis were observed. A total of 322 weevils were examined for microsporidia and none was found infected, indicating an infection rate of less than 1%. These results suggest that N. bruchi may be the only established biological control agent of water hyacinth in the Delta and that infection by microsporidia does not appear to be limiting its population Downloaded by [University of Florida] at 09:01 24 October 2017 abundance. Introduction The Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta (hereafter, the ‘Delta’) is a large freshwater estuary formed by the confluence of two major rivers that drain the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys and surrounding mountain ranges of California. These combined watersheds represent 40% of the land area of California and convey almost half of the annual surface water generated statewide (California Department of Water Resources, 2010). The meeting of these two great rivers has resulted in a complex maze of CONTACT Michael J. Pitcairn [email protected] © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group 756 R. P. AKERS ET AL. approximately 1020 km of natural and man-made channels and water bodies (Gibson, Pratt, & Holcomb, 2002), that interlace a low-lying area of 299,000 hectares. Prior to the mid-1800s, it was a brackish estuary and peat marshland, but now consists mostly of fresh water due to impoundments on upstream tributaries and hydrologic engineering projects within the Delta (Ingebritsen & Ikehara, 1999). It serves as a source of drinking water for 25 million Californians and irrigation water for three million acres of agricultural land. The Delta, itself, contains over 218,000 hectares of agricultural land and is home to a half a million residents. It is heavily utilised for agriculture, commerce, and recreation (California Department of Water Resources, 2010). Water hyacinth, Eichhornia crassipes (Martius) Solms-Laubach (Liliales: Pontederia- ceae), is a floating macrophyte with shiny green leaves, inflated spongy petioles, and attractive purple and yellow flowers that has become very abundant on the waterways of the Delta. It is exotic to North America, having originated in the upper watershed of the Amazon River in South America (Julien, 2001). It was first introduced into the United States in 1884 as an ornamental plant for water gardens (Center, 1994). The first record of water hyacinth growing in the waters of California is a herbarium specimen collected in 1904 in a slough near the town of Clarksburg in Yolo County, a small com- munity in the northern part of the Delta (Bock, 1968). It was first reported as an economic nuisance in 1920 when plants were found in a small tributary of the Kings River in Fresno County, with the observation that the infestation ‘…extends down the slough for about a mile’ (Johnson, 1920). Water hyacinth reproduces clonally through the formation of stolons that give rise to daughter plants and sexually through viable seed. It grows well in the Delta, attaining heights of up to 1 m, and can completely obstruct the passage of boats in small sloughs and forms large mats along the edges of main channels that limit navigation and rec- reational use, reduce water flow, and clog pumps essential for agricultural and domestic water supplies (Anderson, 1990; Mercado, 1983; Thomas & Anderson, 1984). The thick mats shade out light which limits submerged plant growth and alters water quality measures such as dissolved oxygen (Villamagna & Murphy, 2010). A concerted control effort using herbicides addresses the most damaging populations, covering ca 1000– 2000 ha per year, but it is costly, exceeding $6 million USD annually (Edward Hard, Div- ision of Boating & Waterways, California Department of Parks and Recreation, personal communication). Downloaded by [University of Florida] at 09:01 24 October 2017 Biological control through the use of host-specific natural enemies may provide a more cost-effective and sustainable method of controlling water hyacinth in the Delta. The use of biological control successfully reduced the abundance of water hyacinth in several countries worldwide, including Papua New Guinea (Julien & Orapa, 2000), India (Jayanth, 1988), Lake Victoria, Africa (Mailu, 2001), Benin (De Groote, Ajuonu, Attignon, Djessou, & Neuenschwander, 2003), Australia (Wright, 1980), and Mexico (Aguilar, Camarena, Center, & Bojorquez, 2003) and in Louisiana, Florida, and Texas (Center, Cofranceso, & Balciunas, 1989; Cofrancesco, Stewart, & Sanders, 1985; Goyer & Stark, 1984). In California, three species of biological control insects were released in 1982– 1987 for the biological control of water hyacinth in the Delta. The results of this project were reported in a technical report by Stewart, Cofrancesco, and Bezark (1988) and are recapitulated here. BIOCONTROL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 757 Initial releases of biological control agents: a brief summary During 1982–1985, the Aquatic Plant Control Research Program of the US Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station, Vicksburg, Miss., and the Biological Control Program of the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) in Sacramento, California, entered into a cooperative effort to introduce combinations of two South American weevils, Neochetina eichhorniae Warner and N. bruchi Hustache (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), and a South American moth, Niphograpta (formerly Sameodes) albiguttalis (Warren) (Lepidoptera: Crambidae), at four locations in the Delta (Stewart et al., 1988). All three had previously been released into Florida, Louisi- ana, and Texas in 1972, 1974, and 1976, respectively. The objectives of the California project were to establish founder colonies in the Delta, perform short-term analyses of their effectiveness, and determine if some combinations of agents were more effective than others. Releases of the three biological control agents in the Delta occurred between 1982 and 1987. The two Neochetina species were collected from a field population near the Trinity River at Wallisville, Texas. Weevils were shipped to the United States Department of Agri- culture’s Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) quarantine facility at Albany, CA, where they were examined for pathogens and parasites, separated to species, then held on living water hyacinth until release in the field, usually within a few weeks. In these col- lections, N. eichhorniae was the more abundant species (Stewart et al., 1988). The moth, N. albiguttalis, came from pupae collected from field sites in Florida and Louisiana and shipped to the USDA-ARS facility. The adult moths that emerged from these pupae were held as male–female
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