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I. The recorded history of biological control may
be considered as dating from Egyptian records of 4,000 years ago,
where domestic cats were
depicted as useful in rodent control.
II. Insect Predation
A. Recognized at an early date, but the
significance of entomophagy and exploitation was lost except for a
few early human populations in Asia
where a sophisticated agriculture had developed.
B. The Chinese citrus growers since at least
400 BC placed nests of predaceous ants, Oncophylla
smaradina, in trees where the
ants fed on foliage-feeding insects.
Bamboo bridges were constructed to
assist the ants in their movements from
tree to tree.
C. Date growers in Yemen went to North Africa
to collect colonies of predaceous ants which they
colonized in date groves to control various
pests.
III. Insect Parasitoidism
A. Not recognized until the turn of the 17th
Century.
B. First record attributed to the Italian, Aldrovandi (1602). He observed the cocoons of Apanteles
glomeratus being attached to
larvae of Pieris rapae (the imported
cabbageworm). He incorrectly
thought that the cocoons were insect
eggs.
C. Printed illustrations of parasitoids are
found in Metamorphosis by J.
Goedart (1662) <PHOTO>.
He described "small flies"
emerging from butterfly pupae.
D. Antoni van Leeuwenhoek in 1700 (van
Leeuwenhoek 1702) described the phenomenon of parasitoidism
in insects. He drew a female parasitoid laying eggs in aphid hosts.
E. Vallesnieri (1706) <PHOTO>, first correctly interpreted this
host-parasitoid association and probably
became the first to report the existence
of parasitoids. Bodenheimer (1931),
however, noted that several
earlier entomologists recognized the
essence of parasitoidism.
F. Cestoni (1706) reported other parasitoids
from eggs of cruciferous insects. He
called aphids, "cabbage
sheep," and their parasitoids,
"wolf mosquitoes."
G. Erasmus Darwin (1800) discussed the useful
role of parasitoids and predators in regulating insect pests.
IV. During the
remainder of the 18th Century an ever increasing number of references to
entomophagous and
entomogenous organisms appeared in the
literature, largely in the form of papers dealing with parasitoid biologies.
A. Diseases of silkworms were recognized early
in the 18th Century.
B. De Reamur (1726) described and illustrated Cordyceps fungus infecting a
noctuid larva.
V. Biological Control Efforts in the 18th Century
A. By 1762 the first successful importation of
an organism from one country to another for biological
control took place with the introduction
of the mynah bird from India to the
island of Mauritius, for locust
control.
B. Further development
of modern biological control awaited the recognition of the fact that insect
pest
problems were population phenomena. The controversial publications of Malthus appeared toward the
end of the 18th Century, and generated
considerable interest in the subject of populations. Malthus' work
will be discussed further in the next
section on "Concepts in Population Ecology."
VI. Biological Control Efforts in the Early 19th Century
A number of articles appeared during
the first half of the 19th Century that lauded the beneficial effects
of entomophagous
insects.
A. Erasmus Darwin (1800) recommended protecting and
encouraging syrphid flies and ichneumonid
wasps because they destroyed
considerable numbers of cabbage-feeding caterpillars.
B. Kirby & Spence
(1815) <PHOTO> showed that predaceous coccinellids
controlled aphids.
C. Hartig (1827) recommended the construction of large
rearing cages for parasitized caterpillars, with the
ultimate aim of mass release.
D. Ratzeberg (ca. 1828) <PHOTO> called particular attention to the
value of parasitic insects with publication
of a large volume on the parasitoids of
forest insects in Germany. He did not
believe that parasitic control
could be augmented by humans.
E. Agustino Bassi (1834) first demonstrated that a microorganism,
Beauvaria bassiana, caused an animal
disease, namely the muscardine disease of silkworms.
F. Kollär (1837)
<PHOTO> writing an article for farmers,
foresters and gardeners, pointed out the importance
of entomophagous insects in nature's
economy; studied parasitoid biologies and was the first to report the
existence of egg parasitoids.
G. Boisgiraud (1843) reported that he used the predaceous
carabid beetle, Calasoma sycophanta, to
successfully control gypsy moth larvae on
poplars growing near his home in rural France.
He also reported
that he had destroyed earwigs in his
garden by introducing predaceous staphylinid beetles.
VII. Biological Control in the Late 19th Century
Beginning in 1850, events associated
with the westward expansion of agriculture in the United States paved the
way for the further
development of the field of biological control. During and following the "Gold Rush" in
California, agriculture
expanded tremendously in California especially. At first the new and expanded plantings
escaped the ravages of
arthropod pests. Predictably, however,
crops soon began to suffer from destructive
arthropod
outbreaks. Many of these pests were
found to be of foreign origin, and were observed to be far more
destructive in the newly
colonized areas than in their native countries. Consequently, the notion grew that perhaps
these pests had escaped from some regulatory
factor or factors during their accidental introduction into America.
A. Asa Fitch (1855) <PHOTO> was the State Entomologist of New York
who is recorded as the first entomologist
to seriously consider the transfer of
beneficial insects from one country to another for the control of an
agricultural pest. Fitch suggested that the European
parasitoids of the wheat midge, Sitydiplosis
mesellana, be
sent into the eastern United States.
B. Benjamin Walsh <PHOTO> supported Fitch's suggestion and in
1866 he became the first worker in the United
States to suggest that insects be
employed in weed control. He proposed
that insects feeding on toad flax, Linaria
vulgaris, be imported from
Europe to control invaded yellow toad flax plants. The first actual case of biological
control of weeds was, nevertheless, in
Asia, where around 1865 the cochineal insect Dactylopius ceylonicus
was
introduced from southern India into
Ceylon for prickly pear cactus control (Opuntia
vulgaris). Originally Dactylopius
had been imported to India from
Argentina in 1795, in the mistaken belief that it was the cochineal insect of
commerce,
D.
cacti.
C. Louis Pasteur (1865-70) <PHOTO> studied silkworm diseases and saved the
silk industry in France from
ruin [not really biological control].
D. Charles Valentine Riley (1870) <PHOTO>.
1. The father of modern
biological control.
2. He shipped parasitoids
of the plum curculio from Kirkwood, Missouri to other parts of that state.
3. In 1873 he became the first person to
successfully transfer a predator from one country to another with the
shipment of the American predatory mite, Tyroglyphus phylloxerae
to France for use against the destructive
grapevine phylloxera. The results were not particularly
successful, however.
4. In 1883, Riley directed
the first successful intercontinental transfer of an insect parasitoid, Apanteles glomeratus,
from England to the United States for
control of the imported cabbageworm. He
was Chief Entomologist of the
U. S. Department of Agriculture.
5. In 1872, 11 years before the importation of A. glomeratus, Riley began his interest in the cottony-cushion
scale,
Icerya
purchasi, which was considered
the most important citrus pest in California.
He correctly located its point
of origin in Australia.
[Doutt's account of this biological
control program on p. 31-38 of the DeBach (1964) text is particularly colorful.
Read this, paying particular attention
to the following:
a. the roles played by Riley, Albert
Koebele <PHOTO> and D. W. Coquillet <PHOTO>.
b. note the species of insects involved (the
vedalia beetle, Rodolia cardinalis <PHOTO>, and the dipterous
parasitoid, Cryptochaetum iceryae),
their source, numbers imported, and their activities relative to the cottony-
cushion scale.
c. note the method of
colonization, and be able to describe the spectacular results of these
introductions, which
changed the status of the pest to an
insect of no economic importance in only four years time.
VIII. The successful
biological control effort against the cottony-cushion scale spirited many
biological control attempts
in many countries, resulting in over
200 biological control successes (see Chapter 24 of the DeBach (1964) text and
other
hand-outs).
A. The cottony-cushion scale success admittedly
harmed overall pest control in California for quite some time
because growers thought that the vedalia beetle would also
control other insect pests.
Consequently, they
neglected other mechanical and chemical
control methods.
B. George Compere (1899) became the first state employee
specifically hired for biological control work. He
worked as a foreign collector until
1910, during which time he sent many shipments of beneficial insects to
California from many parts of the
world. Harold Compere <PHOTO>, his son,
also devoted his entire career
to the search for and identification of
natural enemies of scale insects.
C. Harry Scott Smith (1913) <PHOTO>.
1. He was appointed superintendent of the State
Insectary in Sacramento.
2. In 1923, biological control work was
transferred to the Citrus Experiment Station and Graduate School of
Subtropical Agriculture of the
University of California, Riverside.
3. Biological control work at Riverside was
first conducted in the Division of Beneficial Insect Investigations,
and was changed to the Division of
Biological Control with Smith as chairman in 1947. Personnel were stationed
at Albany and Riverside.
4. Importation of Chrysolina beetles from Australia
for Klamath weed control marked the beginning of biological
weed control in California in 1944.
5. Edward Steinhaus (1947) <PHOTO> established the first laboratory and
curriculum in insect pathology at the
University of California, Berkeley. Later he transferred to the newly opened
Irvine campus of the University and
attempted to further insect pathology
there. His untimely death in 1968
precluded this goal.
6. The Division of
Biological Control became the Department of Biological Control at UC Riverside
and Berkeley
in 1954.
7. In 1969 Biological Control was dropped as a
department, becoming a Division of Biological Control within the
Department of Entomology, against the
wishes of the entire biological control faculty, numbering over 24 academics
at Riverside and Berkeley at that
time.
8. The Berkeley faculty
created their own separate Division of Biological Control with guaranteed
privileges and
minimum control by the Department of
Entomology. At Riverside the Division
of Biological Control gradually
became dominated by chemical control
oriented faculty in the Department of Entomology. In 1989 the Division
was abolished, against the wishes of 85% of the faculty in the
Division. Ignorance and pecuniary
control among
the ranks of University of California
bureaucrats is believed to be the principal cause. Although the dissenting
faculty in the Division each wrote a
personal plea to the then Chancellor Rosemary S. J. Schraer to discuss the
matter, in not one case was a reply
received.
REFERENCES:
Bassi,
A. 1935. Del mal del segno, calcinaccio o moscardino, mallatia che affigge
i bachi da seta e sul modo di liberarne le bigattaie anche le piu
infestate. Part I: Theoria.
Orcesi, Lodi. p. 1-9, 1-67.
Bodenheimer,
F. S. 1931. Der Massenwechsel in der Tierwelt. Grundriss einer allgemeinen tierischen Bevölkerungslehre. Arch. Zool. Ital. (Napoli) 16: 98-111.
Compere,
G. 1902. Entomologist's Report.
Introduction of Parasites. West.
Austral. Dept. Agric. J. 6: 237-40.
Compere,
G. 1904. Black scale parasite (Scutellista
cyanea). West Austral. Dept. Agric. J. 10: 94.
Compere,
G. 1921. Seasonal history of black scale and relation to biological
control. Calif. Citrog. 6: 197.
Darwin,
E. 1800. Phytologia. Publ.,
London.
DeBach,
P. 1974. Biological control by natural enemies. Combridge Univ. Press.
Doutt,
R. L. 1964. The historical Development of biological control. In: P. DeBach (ed.), Biological Control of
Insect Pests and Weeds. Reinhold Publ.
Corp., New York. 844 p.
Fitch,
Asa. 1954. Sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth reports on the noxious, beneficial
and other insects of the state of New York.
Albany, New York. 259 p.
Goedaert,
J. 1662. Metamorphosis et Historia Naturalis Insectorum. Jacques Fierens, Middelburgh.
Kirby,
W. & W. Spence. 1815. An Introduction to Entomology. Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans,
London. 285 p.
Kollär,
Vincent. 1837. In: London's Gardner's Magazine. 1840. [English translation].
Malthus,
T. R. 1803. An Essay on the Principle of Population as It Affects the Future
Improvement of Society. J. Johnson, London,
2nd ed. 610 p.
Pasteur,
L. 1870 Etudes dur la maladie des vers a soie. Gautherie-Villars, Paris, I:
322 p.; II: 327 p.
Ratzeburg,
J. T. C. 1944a. Die Ichneumonen der Forstinsekten in
forstlicher und entomologischer Beziehung; ein Anhang zur Abbildung und
Beschreibung der Forstinsekten. Theile,
Berlin. 3 vol.
Ratzeburg,
J. T. C. 1944b. Die Ichneumonen der Forstinsekten, Vol.
I. Berlin.
Réaumur,
M. de. 1726. Remarques sur la plante appellée a la Chine Hia Tsao Tom Tchom,
ou plante ver. Mem. Acad. Roy. Sci. (21
Aug 1726). p. 302-5.
Riley,
C. V. 1893. Parasitic and predaceous insects in applied entomology. Insect Life 6: 130-41.
Riley,
W. A. 1931. Erasmus Darwin and the biologic control of insects. Science 73:
475-6.
Smith,
H. S. 1916. An attempt to redefine the host relationships exhibited by
entomophagous insects. J. Econ. Ent. 9: 477-86.
Smith,
H. S. 1919. On some phases of insect control by the biological method. J. Econ. Ent. 12: 288-92.
Smith,
H. S. 1929. The utilization of entomophagous insects in the control of citrus
pests. Trans. 4th Internatl. Congr.
Ent. 2: 191-8.
Steinhaus,
E. A. 1946. Insect Microbiology.
Comstock Publ. Co., Inc., Ithaca, New York. 763 p.
Steinhaus,
E. A. 1949. Principles of Insect Pathology.
McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., New York.
757 p.
van
Leeuwenhoek, A. 1702. Letter in Nr. 266 of the Philosophical
Transaction 1700-1701, Vol. 22, p. 659-72.
Smith & Walford, London.
van
Lenteren, J. C. 1983. Biological pest control: passing fashion or here to stay? Organorama (Netherlands) 20: 1-9.
Walsh,
B. D. 1866. Practical Entomologist.
June 1866. p. 101.
