Tools for Environmental Risk Assessment of Invertebrate Biological Control Agents: a Full and Quick Scan Method

The deliberate or accidental introduction of species from their native ranges to new environments is a major threat to biological diversity. Biological control is both an important management tool for controlling threats to agriculture an the environment as well as in rare cases a potential threat to the environment itself. The newly adopted International Standard for Phytosanitary Measures No. 3 (ISPM3) offers a framework for risk assessment and focuses specifically on the shipment, import, export and release of biological control agents. Guidelines for information requirements of exotic natural enemies and methods for risk assessments are currently in development. The major challenge in developing risk assessment methodologies is to develop protocols and guidelines that will prevent serious mistakes through import and release of potentially harmful exotics, while at the same time still allowing safe forms of biological control to proceed. We expect that a risk assessment methodology for biological control agents will integrate information on the potential of an agent to establish, its abilities to disperse, its host range, and its direct and indirect effects on non-targets. In this presentation, we first propose a comprehensive risk evaluation method (full scan) for new natural enemies and, second, a quick scan method for natural enemies already in use. The outcome of our evaluation of150 biological control agents, commercially available in northwest Europe, will be discussed.