A nursery of killer bugs lies hidden in the foothills of Western Colorado, inside an ordinary laboratory. The exotic insects are intentionally released into the wild by specialists like Kristi Gladem of the Palisade Insectary to provide biological control against exotic species of bugs and vegetation that are posing a threat to the nation's food and water supply, at a cost of $26 billion per year, according to the US. Agriculture Department.
Invasive species in agriculture
GUILLAUME SOUVANT/AFP via Getty Images
She emphasized that biological management aims to restore the predator-prey balance of these invading species, as per CBS News.
When you return to their natural predators, you are engaging in a millennia-long evolutionary arms race in which these predators are far more capable of reducing the pest population than humans can ever be.
The Palisade Insectary was born in the 1940s when international trade began unintentionally bringing invasive bugs into the country.
It is one of three facilities in the country that offer pesticide-free eradication to public lands and organic producers.
Brant Harrison, who has been cultivating organic peaches for decades, referred to the method as the "savior of the fruit farming business."
There are many issues that we cannot address naturally in a significant sense, he told CBS News.
Every killer bug is examined for up to 20 years in controlled exterior settings to ensure it's doesn't prey on other local species, according to Gladem.
The federal government also monitors the studies. Twenty-seven control agents have been developed, with a reported success rate of 100%.
Gladem is currently concentrating on two significant threats: the water-sucking yellow thistle, which has entered 25% of water stress California, and the ash borer, which destroys trees and adds to the drought of West's wildfires.
Invasive plants can endanger native species, ecosystems, human health, and many economic sectors, including agriculture, forestry, and tourism, as per CABI.
Non-native or exotic plant species will be those who grow even outside their natural range. One of the reasons these non-native plants may become invasive is a lack of natural enemies that restrict their vigor, density, and dispersal.
The employment of live creatures such as insects, mites, or fungal infections to manage pest populations is known as classical biological control, or biocontrol.
It evens the playing field by returning some of the specialized natural enemies that aid in the suppression of invasive species in their native area.
The goal is not to exterminate the invasive plant, but to reduce its density to an acceptable ecological or biological threshold.
Biological control of invasive species through co-evolved natural enemies has long been seen to be a safe, cost-effective, and ecologically friendly pest management method, as per the journal, Biological Control of Invasive Species: Solution or Pollution?
Recent research, however, has called into question the extent to which these imported natural enemies have a deleterious influence on non-target species populations.
As a result, there has been a heated discussion concerning the safety and legitimate purpose of biological control, with neither side providing persuasive data.
The difficulties are particularly acute in Hawaii, which has a high concentration of both endemic and imported pest species.
