John A. McLean

In the dark in a large urban park: DNA barcodes illuminate cryptic and introduced moth species

To facilitate future assessments of diversity following disturbance events, we conducted a first level inventory of nocturnal Lepidoptera in Stanley Park, Vancouver, Canada. To aid the considerable task, we employed high-throughput DNA barcoding for the rough sorting of all material and for tentative species identifications, where possible. We report the preliminary species list of 190, the detection of four new exotic species (Argyresthia pruniella, Dichelia histrionana, Paraswammerdamia lutarea, and Prays fraxinella), and the potential discovery of two cryptic species. We describe the magnitude of assistance that barcoding presents for faunal inventories, from reducing specialist time to facilitating the detection of native and exotic species at low density.

Pheromone-Based Suppression of Ambrosia Beetles in Industrial Timber Processing Areas

Ambrosia beetles (Coleoptera:Scolytidae) constitute one of the primary breakdown agents in the natural forests of the Pacific Northwest of North America. There are 3 important species, Trypodendron lineatum (Olivier), Gnathotrichus sulcatus (LeConte) and G. retusus (LeConte). Each spring they infest the sapwood of coniferous trees that have died the previous winter. Female T. lineatum and male Gnathotrichus spp. initiate the attack and produce aggregation pheromones which induce mass attack on suitable hosts (Rudinsky and Daterman, 1964a,b; Chapman, 1966; Borden and Stokkink, 1973; Borden and McLean, 1979). In nature, this process ensures maximal utilization of isolated windthrown, broken or dying hosts (Atkins, 1966). However, in industrial timber-processing operations such as dryland log sorting areas (dryland sorts) (Fig. 1) and sawmills (Fig. 2) the same attack behavior by abnormally high beetle populations constitutes a major problem.

IPM in the forests of British Columbia, Canada

Abstract The 51.2 million ha of productive forest land in British Columbia are surveyed annually by the Forest Insect and Disease Survey of Forestry Canada. The development of provincial pest management capabilities is reviewed from their creation in 1980 through to their present organization in six regions across British Columbia. Basic research is carried out at Universities and at Forestry Canada while the operational implementation of pest management is the responsibility of the pest management (forest health) personnel in the B.C. Ministry of Forests.