MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

NZ bugs to help contain invasive species

Punta Arenas Agriculture and Livestock Laboratory, following on a New Zealand experience, are considering the biological control of a weed that is proving particularly harmful for Magallanes Region grassland.

The project consists in introducing two different kinds of New Zealand bugs, which apparently feed on the Hieracium pilosella, an invasive species that has been in the region for decades and threatens the natural forage.

New Zealand has been exposed to the same invasive weed but a ten year program seems to help contain its advance, according to Chilean biologists who have followed closely the situation.

In the Punta Arenas lab, they are already working with a type of fly, Macrolabis pillosellae binnie, which was imported from New Zealand and feeds naturally on the Hieracium pilosella.

"Besides in the coming days we're expecting to receive a micro wasp, Aulacidea subterminalis niblett which is particularly voracious with the invasive flora", revealed Teresa Cortés, an agronomist working for the project in Punta Arenas.

Both insects will remain in quarantine conditions until it can be proved that their depredatory conditions are limited to the specific weed and do not spread to other local Magallanes flora.

If the results during the coming months are successful and the NZ insects effectively help to contain the advance of the invasive species without harming other local ones, they will commence to be distributed in several areas at the beginning of 2006.