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Lancaster University 2004
Biocontrol Working Group Workshop
7 - 9 September 2004
BIOCONTROL WORKING GROUP MEETING 7 – 9 SEPTEMBER 2004
The EWRS Biocontrol Working Group held its biennial meeting recently in
conjunction with the British Ecological Society (BES) Annual Meeting. The
British Ecological Society is a large (4500 members) old (founded 1913)
society with a membership spread amongst the pure and applied aspects of
ecology. The society holds a large (about 500 delegates, 8 parallel
sessions) general annual meeting, this year at Lancaster University. The
Biocontrol Working Group decided that it would be good to hold its meeting
as a ‘thematic topic’ within this large meeting, hoping to attract not only
EWRS biocontrol workers, but also interested delegates from the rest of the
conference. In the end there were three applications to the BES to hold
thematic topic meetings on aspects of invasive species, and two of these
joined forces to produce one thematic topic called ‘Non-native and invasive
species: defining the problem, identifying research needs and applying
practical solutions’ which was listed in the Programme as ‘a joint meeting
of the UK Biodiversity Research Group, Biological Control Working Group of
the European Weed Research Society, hosted by the BES Invasive Species
Specialist Group’. This topic ran from Tuesday morning 7th September until
Thursday morning, and we easily filled all the available slots in the
schedule with offered papers, and even had to put some in a ‘spill over’
session. The main weed biocontrol session was on Tuesday 7th September and
contained the following speakers:
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R Charudattan (University of Florida) |
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Plant pathogens – an underexploited resource to counteract
invasive weeds – invited key note paper |
| RH Shaw, R Greatrex (CABI Bioscience,
UK) |
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Why is biological control so difficult in the UK? |
| DH Djeddour, RH Shaw, RA Tanner (CABI
Bioscience, UK) |
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The biological control of Japanese knotweed (Fallopia
japonica): the story so far |
| AA Kirk, T Widmer, T Dudley, G Campobasso
(USDA, Montpellier) |
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Biological control of Arundo donax; a practical
solution |
| HC Evans, AJ Tomley (CABI Bioscience,
UK) |
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Towards successful management of the Madagascan rubber-vine
weed in Australia: an integrated approach underpinned by classical
biological control |
| E Gerber, HL Hinz (CABI Bioscience,
Switzerland) |
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Impact of two potential biological control agents on
Alliaria petiolata and the interactions between them |
| H Mueller-Schaerer, U Schaffner, T Steinger
(University of Fribourg, Switzerland) |
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Evolution in invasive plants and implications for biological
control |
During Tuesday evening we held an informal drinks reception in the new
Lancaster Environment Centre at the University (thanks to the Department of
Biology for hosting and contributing towards this), which gave us all a
chance to escape from the overflowing bars in the main conference and have a
slightly quieter drink and chat.
Biocontrol papers were also scattered around some of the other sessions, and
there were a number of biocontrol posters as well:
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Biocontrol posters |
| C Oduro, P Hatcher, J Newman
(University of Reading, UK) |
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Control of red water fern (Azolla
filiculoides) using tarragon (Artemisia dracunculoides) and
mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) leaf extracts |
| RH Reeder, RH Shaw (CABI
Bioscience, UK) |
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Inundative biocontrol of Azolla filiculoides
using a specialist weevil |
| Other
biocontrol papers |
| D Salzmann, RJ Handley, H
Mueller-Schaerer (University of Fribourg, Switzerland) |
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Effect of reduced photosynthetic rate in
Senecio vulgaris on resistance and tolerance to the rust fungus
Puccinia lagenophorae |
| Y Cachu, S Inglese, ND Paul
(Lancaster University, UK) |
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Tolerance of Senecio vulgaris to
defoliation and disease |
| HL Hinz, M Schwarzlaender (CABI
Bioscience, Switzerland) |
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Comparing invasive plants in their native and
exotic range: what can we learn for biocontrol? |
| YM Buckley, M Rees, Q Paynter, M
Lonsdale (NERC Centre for Population Biology, UK) |
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An integrated approach to managing invasive
weeds |
| SJ Inglese, Y Cachu, ND Paul
(Lancaster University, UK) |
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Tolerance of Senecio vulgaris attacked by
a native and alien rust fungus |
| KE Rose, SM Louda, M Rees
(Imperial College, UK) |
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Demographic and evolutionary impacts of native
and invasive insect herbivores, a case study with Platte thistle Cirsium
canescens |
| S Uygur, L Smith, FN Uygur (Cukurova
University, Turkey) |
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Biological control studies on Centaurea
solstitialis L. (yellow starthistle) in Turkey |
| A full list with brief
abstracts can still be found on the BES web-site (http://www.britishecologicalsciety.org).
There was also much of interest in the meeting to other EWRS members. For
example, there were sessions on ‘Intractable clonal weeds: their biology and
methods of restoring biodiversity’ ‘Pest control’ and ‘Agroecology’.
Personally, I found that the ‘thematic topic’ format worked well, and ours
regularly attracted over 100 participants (many more than we have had recent
EWRS Biocontrol Workshops) and there was a much wider range of papers than
we would normally have been exposed to; from Government policy and
conservation measures to the invasive species themselves, from marine to
terrestrial, animal to plant. I had some trepidation at first about
arranging a joint meeting with another society, but any fears were
groundless as the BES did all the organising (much appreciated by the
author!), leaving the session organisers to arrange papers. The BES even
paid for our key-note speaker, gave the EWRS free space for an information
desk and included an EWRS leaflet free of charge in the delegates’ pack. For
all of this the biocontrol group is extremely grateful.
Paul Hatcher
Click here to go to the abstracts
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