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.