Advances in understanding the ecology of invasive crop insect pests and their impact on IPM

Invasive species remain one of the greatest threats to the productivity and sustainability of agriculture, forests, prairies and wetlands (Lovett et al., 2016; Paini et al., 2016). By definition these species are alien (i.e. non-native) to some ecosystems in which they now occur. In their adventive geographic range, they lack co-evolutionary history with the native flora and fauna. As a result, hosts are bereft of specific resistance mechanisms, and no specialized co-evolved natural enemies occur to regulate pest population growth. Alien species become invasive when they cause, or are likely to cause, economic, ecological or social (including human health) harms. Indeed, most insect pests of agriculture and forestry are non-native and efforts to control them dominate applied entomology (Liebhold and Griffin, 2016). The most recent update to the National Road Map for Integrated Pest Management (IPM) places a special emphasis on invasive species (OPMP, 2018).