Impact of invasive fall armyworm on plant and arthropod communities and implications for crop protection

Abstract

The environmental impact of exotic insect pest species is often poorly quantified, making current pest management strategies obsolete. The fall armyworm (FAW) is endemic to the Western hemisphere – where it is considered a major pest of maize – and invasive to Africa, Asia and Oceania since 2016, 2018 and 2020, respectively. FAW’s highly polyphagous behaviour and potential expansion of its host range in invaded habitats may put some non-crop flowering plants and their ecosystem services at risk. While its potential for intraguild competition and hybridisation with endemic maize pest species could have important consequences for pest population dynamics and pest management, a FAW inter-strain hybrid – resistant to pesticides – has already been documented in China. Integrated pest management (IPM) combines host plant resistance, agronomic practices and biological control for the long-term prevention of pests. Within invaded areas, a lack of knowledge of FAW’s ecological adaptations, the absence of resistant cultivars, and an insufficient build-up of natural enemies provide challenges that translate into research opportunities to support IPM solutions for this exotic pest species.

Keywords:

• Spodoptera frugiperda
• insect pests
• exotic insect species
• integrated pest management
• biodiversity
• native species

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Henan Science and Technology Department grant no. HNGD2021049 (to CA-P), Nanyang Normal University (to S.H. and Y.K.) and The Royal Society, U.K. (to DJW). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The authors thank four anonymous reviewers and the editor for useful suggestions.

Author contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.