Movie screens light up in the summer with battles between good and evil. Heroic wizards battle malevolent magicians. Kindly robots defend against malicious machines. Super-heroes stand against their villainous counterparts.

A West Virginia University entomologist is staging another kind of good-versus-evil battle as he studies whether one kind of stink bug can defend against a malicious invader.

Yong-Lak Park, an assistant professor of entomology in WVU’s Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design, is studying the potential of the spined soldier bug as a natural deterrent to the invasive brown marmorated stink bug, which is staging an ongoing invasion in the mid-Atlantic region.

“At first, the brown marmorated stink bug was considered a household nuisance pest because it overwinters inside houses or buildings, sometimes in large numbers,” Park explained. When disturbed, the insect can give off a repulsive, pungent, citrus-like odor.

Experts suspect that brown marmorated stink bug probably hitchhiked its way from Asia in container ships. It was first detected in this country in Allentown, Pa., in 1996. It has no natural enemies here, so the population has grown quickly.

The insect has been found in 33 states. It has spread to agricultural commodities, becoming a major pest of fruit orchards, field crops, vegetables, and ornamentals in the Mid-Atlantic region. The stink bug has caused considerable crop damage to fruit orchards and organic vegetable farms in the Eastern Panhandle.

As a result, the State Horticultural Association of Pennsylvania tapped Park to see if he could develop a biological control for the invader that could effectively fend off the destruction of crops without forcing growers to resort to chemical pesticides.

Park has been looking into the appetites of the spined solder bug as an indigenous adversary for its destructive cousin. While the soldier bugs aren’t displaying an appetite for adult stink bugs, they do eat stink bug eggs, which could effectively curb the population of stink bugs.

“Pesticides used in agricultural areas have not controlled the stink bug in most cases because the insects are so agile and mobile that they can readily reinfest crops after a pesticide is sprayed,” Park explained.

One major concern that Park is trying to address is the visual similarity of the stink and soldier bugs. While the soldier bug is benign and even potentially useful to growers, it looks an awful lot like the stink bug. As a result, Park is working to educate growers on identifying the differences between the two species. Park is also working to develop a population of soldier bugs for growers to use in their orchards and fields.

-WVU-

dw/06/28/11

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