Seventeenth Australasian Weeds Conference Will adult feeding damage rule out introducing Mecysolobus erro against buddleia into New Zealand? Toni M. Withers, Belinda A. Gresham and Michelle C. Watson Scion, Private Bag 3020, Rotorua 3046, New Zealand Corresponding author:
[email protected] Summary We are evaluating the potential benefits of which appears to peak each autumn (Watson et al. a second biological control agent for buddleia (Buddle- 2009). ja davidii Franch.) in New Zealand in addition to the buddleia leaf weevil, Cleopus japonicus Wingelmüller. MATERIALS AND METHODS Adult Mecysolobus erro (Pascoe) feed on the terminal Mecysolobus erro was imported from China into stem and fleshy leaf midribs and petioles of buddleia, the Scion Invertebrate Quarantine and Containment while the larvae are stem borers, causing stem collapse. Facility in 1999. No-choice oviposition and feeding No-choice host specificity testing of adults in China assays were conducted using 30 adult pairs of the predicted the insect was host specific to Buddleja spe- second generation of the laboratory colony that had cies. However, no-choice testing within containment in been over-wintered at 10°C. Pairs were transferred New Zealand revealed significant adult feeding upon in spring to a quarantine room maintained at 21°C terminal shoots of non-target Scrophulariaceae, e.g. and 70% RH and a 14:10 h L:D cycle, and each pair Scrophularia auriculata L. and Verbascum thapsus L., provided with one soft, current season’s B. davidii and some less closely related native plants, Parahebe stem, that was then changed three times a week. Plant hookeriana (Walp.) W.R.B.Oliv.