Université de Fribourg

In-season leaf damage by a biocontrol agent explains reproductive output of an invasive plant species

Augustinus, Benno A. ; Lommen, Suzanne T.E. ; Fogliatto, Silvia ; Vidotto, Francesco ; Smith, Tessa ; Horvath, David ; Bonini, Maira ; Gentili, Rodolfo F. ; Citterio, Sandra ; Müller-Schärer, Heinz ; Schaffner, Urs

In: NeoBiota, 2020, vol. 55, p. 117–146

One of the biggest challenges in classical biological control of invasive weeds is predicting the likelihood of success. Ambrosia artemisiifolia, a North American plant species that has become invasive in Europe, causes economic losses due to health problems resulting from its huge amount of highly allergenic pollen and as a weed to agricultural crops resulting from high seed densities. Here...

Université de Fribourg

Direct effects of insecticides on common ragweed-implications for natural enemy exclusion trials

Lommen, Suzanne T. E. ; Fogliatto, Silvia ; Vidotto, Francesco ; Citterio, Sandra ; Augustinus, Benno Andreas ; Müller-Schärer, Heinz

In: Journal of Pesticide Science, 2018, vol. 43, no. 1, p. 36-40

Experimentally applying pesticides is an important method to assess the efficacy of weed biocontrol agents, but potential direct effects of the chemicals on plant performance are controversial or unknown. We assessed how three broad-spectrum insecticides applied in combination affect the performance of the widely invasive, crop-yield reducing, allergenic common ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia...