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Tom Saunders

PhD Candidate

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oechalia

Stink Bugs of NZ

July 24, 2018 By Tom 6 Comments

My PhD project focuses on biocontrol: using beneficial species to manage the impacts of undesirable species.

I’m looking at Trissolcus japonicus, or the ‘samurai wasp.’ This tiny Asian wasp has been proposed for release against the brown marmorated stink bug in New Zealand (if and when the stink bug is found to have established here). My work focuses on testing the likelihood this wasp would attack New Zealand’s native and naturalised stink bug species if it were released. In order to do this, I’m rearing NZ stink bug species so I can use their eggs to test the behaviour of the wasp.

Most researchers conducting these types of tests would have to compile a short-list of stink bug species to test, based on things like their biological classification, their rarity, their economic importance, etc. But New Zealand has so few species of stink bug, I can include all potential non-target species in my tests. Here is a visual guide to New Zealand’s stink bugs.

When stink bugs hatch, they aggregate together around the egg shells until after their first moult. Image CC-BY-NC 4.0 by fairyeagle / iNaturalistNZ

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Filed Under: Factsheets Tagged With: BMSB, brown marmorated stink bug, cermatulus nasalis, cuspicona, dictyotus, glaucias, green veetable bug, gvb, hypsithocus hudsonae, insect culturing, insect rearing, lab, monteithiella, new zealand, nezara, oechalia, pentatomidae, phd, Plant & Food Research, samurai wasp, stink bug, stink bugs, trissolcus japonicus, university of auckland

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Hi!
I'm a PhD candidate in the School of Biological Sciences at The University of Auckland. My research focuses on improving the methods used to test biological control agents for their potential non-target impacts.

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academic publishing biodiversity biological control biosecurity BMSB brown marmorated stink bug figshare GC-EAD github halyomorpha halys hymenoptera hypsithocus hudsonae landcare research Lusius malfoyi media native species new zealand open access open data open education open science parasitoid parasitoid wasp peer review pentatomidae phd Plant & Food Research post-print reference manager research samurai wasp scholarly publishing scicomm science science communication science learning hub species description taxonomy tom saunders trissolcus japonicus university university of auckland wasp wasps zotero

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