Mapping the distribution of Harmonia axyridis in Argentina through citizen science

WERENKRAUT, VICTORIA; BAUDINO FLORENCIA; ROY HELEN

Punta Delgada

Congreso; BENEFITS AND RISKS OF EXOTIC BIOLOGICAL CONTROL AGENTS; 2018

Harmoniaaxyridis (Coleoptera, Coccinellidae) isan example of a biological control agent that has become a successful invader. Itis a species native from Asia, which has been introduced to control aphid pestsin many countries around the world, but nowadays it is considered as a pestitself. The spread and effects of this species have been intensively studied inEurope and North America, but in South America good information only exists forChile, where the species showed an extremely fast rate of spread. Despite therelevance of this species in a neighbouring country, and that predictions basedon climatic models show that H. axyridispotential distribution includes almost the entire Argentine territory, studiesfocused on the distribution, spread and impact of this species in Argentina aresurprisingly scarce. By the late 1990s H.axyridis had been introduced into the centre of Argentina (Mendozaprovince) and by 2001 it was detected in Buenos Aires (around 1000 km away). By2018 it was established in at least four provinces in the centre of Argentina(Buenos Aires, Mendoza, Córdoba and Santa Fé), and in NW Patagonia (Neuquén andRío Negro), but unfortunately, the available data is mainly anecdotic and/or fromgrey literature. Our aim is to compile the distribution of the species inArgentina, as a baseline for further studies. We have started a citizen scienceproject (https://sites.google.com/a/comahue-conicet.gob.ar/vam) which ischallenging because of the lack of tradition for people recording species inArgentina.