Feb. 14, 2013
Mills is a professor of insect population ecology in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley and a curator at the Essig Museum of Entomology.
"There have been many accidental introductions of phytophagous insect pests into new geographic regions and in the absence of biotic resistance from entomophagous insects some have become invasive and notorious as pests of natural and managed ecosystems," Mills says. "In contrast, there are very few examples of biotic resistance to insect invasions by entomophagous insects. Since its discovery in California in 2006, the light brown apple moth has accumulated a rich set of resident parasitoid species comparable to that seen in its native Australia. However, in contrast to the low levels of parasitism that invasive hosts typically experience from resident parasitoids, parasitism levels for light brown apple moth are very high."
Mills will discuss the importance of resident parasitoids as barriers to the invasions of light brown apple moth (Epiphyas postvittana) in California. In 2009 he was appointed a member of Light Brown Apple Moth Review Committee, National Research Council of the National Academies. His research interests include invasive species, biological control, and ecology of natural enemies.
Native to Australia, LBAM has been found in a dozen counties since retired UC Berkeley entomologist Jerry Powell, a moth taxonomist, first detected the pest in his Berkeley backyard on July 19, 2006.
As a caterpillar, the moth eats just about everything from A to Z: apple, apricot, beans, caneberries (blackberry, blueberry, boysenberry, raspberry), cabbage, camellia, chrysanthemum, citrus, clover, cole crops, eucalyptus, jasmine, kiwifruit, peach, pear, persimmon, plantain, pumpkin, strawberry, tomato, rose and zea mays (corn).
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894