Tentative analysis of the interceptions of non‐indigenous organisms in Europe during 1995–2004¹

Abstract

We analysed the notifications of non‐compliance reported by EPPO for 29 European countries for the period 1995–2004. Although gaps probably existed for some of these countries, a total of 8889 interceptions of non‐indigenous pests were reported, among which insects were largely dominant (75.9%) followed by nematodes (11.7%). Pests came predominantly from Asia (38.2%) but intra‐European exchanges contributed roughly the same proportion of pests (33.2%). The predominant commodities on which pests arrived were cut flowers (22.3%), plants for planting and potted plants (19.1%) and vegetables (18.7%) but bonsais (8.6%) appeared to contribute more than wood/bark (3.7%) and wood derivates (2.3%). Among the intercepted insects, two orders were quite equally dominant, Diptera (30.7% of which 66.7% of agromyzids) and Homoptera (30.0% among which 82.7% of aleyrodids), far above Coleoptera (17.8% of which 28.1% of cerambycids) and Lepidoptera (9.3% of which 72.6% of noctuids). The intercepted insect species reported as identified with certainty constituted a list of 302 entities, Bemisia tabaci (Aleyrodidae) and Liriomyza huidobrensis (Agromyzidae) showing the largest number of individuals. The discrepancies observed for some species between a limited number of interceptions and their effective establishment in Europe (e.g. only 1 interception for the western corn rootworm, Diabrotica virgifera ) could be useful for identifying the invasion pathways.