Biological control in the Dominican Republic.

Abstract

Abstract During the first part of the 20th century several introductions were made, resulting in successful classical biocontrol of coconut scale and cottony cushion scale. After 1970, biocontrol activities increased and prospecting for biocontrol agents of pests, diseases and weeds took place. Other successful classical biocontrol programmes were implemented after 1980, resulting in control of citrus blackfly, whiteflies, papaya mealybug, pink hibiscus mealybug and Anastrepha fruit flies. A number of cases of natural control by predatory bugs, chrysopids, syrphids, coccinellids, entomopathogenic fungi and nematodes were documented for arthropod pests, such as whiteflies, thrips, mites, lepidopterans, and dipteran and lepidopteran leaf miners. Conservation biocontrol enhancing the action of parasitoids, predators or pathogens of lepidopterans, whiteflies, leaf miners, thrips, aphids and mites in vegetables was developed, as well as for citrus psyllids and fruit flies. Augmentative biocontrol of the coffee berry borer, using an exotic parasitoid and a pathogen, of the ello sphinx in cassava, of thrips and other vegetable pests in greenhouses and open fields, and of bilharzia-transmitting snails, was implemented. Also, prospecting for native predatory mites has been executed recently. Conservation biocontrol based on integrated approaches using cultural control measures, monitoring systems, selective pesticides and native natural enemies is step by step reaching larger groups of agricultural producers, above all those who produce crops destined for export markets, which are subject to severe regulations concerning types and residues of synthetic pesticides.