I became curious about cases of biocontrols, hailed as heroes in some circumstances, becoming pests at other times or places. I found a few examples. Do you know of any others?
The most notorious one is
Harmonia axyridis, the Asiatic lady beetle. It got to Europe on its own. There, it is considered a pest and is monitored in an effort to prevent its spread. A couple of them crushed accidentally with grapes can spoil a whole batch of wine; they out-compete or simply devour other lady beetles and they make a nuisance of themselves when they invade houses in late Fall.
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A National Wildlife
article lists three other examples, a moth, a fly and a weevil.
The moth,
Cactoblastis cactorum was a life saver in Australia where it was introduced to combat the non-native prickly pear cactus, but it is becoming a pest in Florida where it attacks five or more species of native cacti. Apparently it arrived there from the Caribbean on its own
The fly
Compsilura concinnata was introduced to control the gipsy moth
Lymantria dispar, but it decided to include in its menu some native silk moths including the cecropia moth
Hyalophora cecropia and has reduced their numbers significantly.
Finally the flower head weevil
Rhinocyllus conicus was introduced from Europe to control non-native thistles. This weevil has taken a liking to some native thistles, too.
I also found a reference to another moth: the knapweed root moth,
Agapeta zoegana in a
Federal website document. The target is the spotted knapweed
Centaurea maculosa but, in an intricate web of interactions, it seems to impair the growth of a native grass
Festuca idahoensis when the two plants grow close together and when the grass is being attacked by another moth
Trichoplusia ni. I don’t think that these results are conclusive yet.
There are other examples of non-arthropod biocontrols gone bad, but they don’t matter here. If you know of other bugs turned bad, like the examples mentioned above, I would appreciate hearing about them.