Skip to main content
Entomology 2025 Main banner
Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.
 
Oral Presentation
Oral Presentation
Poster Display
Poster Display
Student Competition
Student Competition
Ticketed Event
Ticketed Event

10-Minute Presentation

Plant-Insect Ecosystems

10-min: P-IE, Invasive Species

Integrating Leptopilina japonica biological control into management of Drosophila suzukii in highbush blueberry: Opportunities and challenges for releases and conservation

Sunday, November 9, 2025
3:54 PM - 4:06 PM Pacific
Location: Oregon Convention Center, E141-142, OCC
Oral Presentation
The recent establishment of the parasitic wasp Leptopilina japonica across North America has presented new biological control options against the spotted-wing drosophila, Drosophila suzukii. Commercial blueberry growers in Michigan control D. suzukii through use of insecticides, but this makes integration of L. japonica as a management tool more complicated. In this study we monitored parasitism of D. suzukii in blueberries collected from managed and unmanaged blueberry fields in southwest Michigan. In addition, we tested whether targeted releases of L. japonica can increase parasitism of D. suzukii in blueberry fields. Finally, laboratory and field experiments were conducted to identify insecticides that could help conserve L. japonica parasitoids in commercial blueberry production.