Addressing invasive pests in European fruit production systems

Abstract

Biological invasions are currently, considered one of the main concerns affecting national and regional economies, ecosystems functions, sustainable production of agricultural goods, pesticide use, conservation and epidemiology of vector borne diseases. Despite intense efforts within the European Union to impose, support and coordinate the implementation o’f actions to address invasive pests, there is an increasing record of invasion events and a rather slow and often unsuccessful response. Fruit and vegetable production systems are amongst the most vulnerable to invasion, mainly because of fresh commodities trading and the human mobility that results in dispersion of propagules in long distances. Bringing true fruit flies as a model system, the Horizon 2020 funded project FF-IPM “ln-silico boosted, pest prevention and off-season focused 1PM against new and emerging fruit flies” tackles all phases of invasion (arrival, establishment, naturalization, and dispersion) and generates novel tools and approaches to enhance stakeholders’ capacity to predict invasion risk, intercept, and detect invasive species, and apply novel, ecologically friendly management approaches. Novel e-nose systems to intercept fruit fly infested fruits in cargo shipments, as well as electronic traps and advanced detection and surveillance systems have been developed. Thorough climatic and population modelling that estimates establishment risk at a spatial and temporal continuum for three fruit fly species have been generated. Last but not least, computer assisted Integrated Pest Management (1PM) strategies for off and on season implementation are currently pilot tested. Bringing concepts, approaches, and developments of the FF-IPM project as a “live example” the current paper discusses the weaknesses of the European system to deal with ongoing invasion events and the opportunities to establish a more efficient preparedness strategy against biological invasions in fruit producing systems.