Troy Kimoto

Canadian Food Inspection Agency · Plant Health Survey Unit

The Siberian silk moth, Dendrolimus sibiricus Tschetverikov, is a very serious pest of conifers in Russia and is an emerging threat in North America where an accidental introduction could have devastating impacts on native forest resources. Other Dendrolimus Germar species and related Eurasian lasiocampids in the genus Malacosoma (Hubner) could als...

The bronze birch borer, Agrilus anxius, is a North American buprestid pest of stressed or weakened birch trees (Betula spp.) and is considered a major threat to European birch species as a potentially adventive insect. Laboratory bioassays and field trapping experiments were conducted to elucidate potential visual and chemical cues used in host loc...

Studying the means of dispersal of plant pathogens is crucial to better understand the dynamic interactions involved in plant infections. On one hand, entomologists rely mostly on both traditional molecular methods and morphological characteristics, to identify pests. On the other hand, high-throughput sequencing (HTS) is becoming the go-to avenue...

Anthropogenic activities have a major impact on the global environment. Canada's natural resources are threatened by the spread of fungal pathogens, which is facilitated by agricultural practices and international trade. Fungi are introduced to new environments and sometimes become established, in which case they can cause disease outbreaks resulti...

Understanding ecological interactions is a key in managing phytopathology. Although entomologists rely mostly on both traditional molecular methods and morphological characteristics to identify pests, next-generation sequencing is becoming the go-to avenue for scientists studying fungal and oomycete phytopathogens. These organisms sometimes infect...

The occurrence of declining trees associated with the presence of red turpentine beetle (RTB), Dendroctonus valens, has increased over the last years around the city of Abbotsford, British Columbia (BC). This bark beetle is usually a secondary insect pest attacking weakened conifers or those that have been recently fire-scorched. We sought to verif...

A warmer climate may potentially have a strong effect on the health status of European oak forests by weakening oak trees and facilitating mass reproduction of wood boring insects. We did a laboratory experiment in Slovakia to study the response of major pest beetles of oak and their parasitoids to different temperature regimes as background for pr...

Woodborers in the Agrilus genus (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) pose high invasiveness risk as indicated by the recent invasion and continental spread of emerald ash borer, and the associated threat to ash resources in North America. In that context, development of detection tools for potentially invasive Agrilus spp. is a research priority. Experiments...

Objective: Semiochemicals have the advantages such as less environmental pollution, less easy to produce drug resistance and easy to use in monitoring and controlling insect pests, which is a hot study spot in pest control field. In this study, we compared the lure effects of three botanical attractants to beetles in two forest types in order to sc...

Preventing the introduction and establishment of forest invasive alien species (FIAS) such as the Asian gypsy moth (AGM) is a high-priority goal for countries with extensive forest resources such as Canada. The name AGM designates a group of closely related Lymantria species (Lepidoptera: Erebidae: Lymantriinae) comprising two L. dispar subspecies...

Details of primer and probe design, along with validation results for each individual TaqMan assay (1 assay/tab; first tab: general lymantriine primers). (XLSX)

Excel sheet tool for Lymantria species/subspecies identification. (XLSX)

List of sources of DNA sequences used for assay development. (XLSX)

Sequences of primers used for PCR amplification of potential markers. (DOCX)

Cerceris fumipennis Say, 1837 (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae) is a wasp that provisions its subterranean nests with jewel beetles (Coleoptera: Buprestidae). At 3 newly discovered colonies in British Columbia (BC), C. fumipennis prey were collected by excavating the subterranean nests, using sweep nets to capture paralyzed prey in the grasp of a female r...

Cercerisfumipennis Say, 1837 (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae) is a wasp that provisions its subterranean nests with jewel beetles (Coleoptera: Buprestidae). At 3 newly discovered colonies in British Columbia (BC), Cercerisfumipennis prey were collected by excavating the subterranean nests, using sweep nets to capture paralyzed prey in the grasp of a fema...

The emerald ash borer (EAB), Agrilus planipennis, is native to eastern Asia but has been introduced into North America where it now occurs in 25 states (US) and 2 provinces (Canada). In its native range, EAB is not a pest, but in North America it is a highly invasive species where it has killed millions of ash trees. Purple and green sticky panel p...

Monochamol (2-undecyloxy-1-ethanol) is a male-produced aggregation pheromone for several Monochamus Dejean (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) species. We conducted trapping experiments in Canada, Poland, and China to test whether monochamol was attractive to additional Monochamus species and if attraction was synergised by plant volatiles and bark beetle (...

Within Canada, Cerceris fumipennis Say (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae) is known to occur in Ontario and Québec but there is also one historic record from 1935 of two female specimens captured in Lytton, British Columbia. No other records have been recorded for the last 77 years. In 2012 and 2013, one male and four females were captured in a sweep net ad...

The attractiveness of ultra high release ethanol lures to ambrosia beetles in Slovakian oak forests was tested from 2010 to 2012. A total of 24,705 specimens were captured during this three year period with Xyleborinus saxesenii (Ratzeburg, 1837) representing 49.28% (12,174 specimens) of the total. Other dominant species captured in the traps were...

Introductions of some forest invasive alien species result in important economic, environmental, and ecological impacts. One approach used by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to improve the detection of these species is to collect logs from trees in declining health at high risk sites of introduction and to incubate them to obtain insects, if pr...

Available online: http://www.biodiversityinfocus.com/pdfs/Jewel_Beetle_Field_Guide_French.pdf

Available online: http://www.biodiversityinfocus.com/pdfs/Jewel_Beetle_Field_Guide_English.pdf

The banded elm bark beetle, Scolytus schevyrewi Semenov was detected for the first time in British Columbia near Kelowna during 2010. Fifty-eight S. schevyrewi were in an experiment that targeted the European elm bark beetle, Scolytus mutistriatus (Marsham). It was a test of the efficacy of a new trap design relative to the multiple funnel trap cur...

Past infestations of the white pine weevil, Pissodes strobi (Peck), were reconstructed by examining standing and felled trees in naturally regenerated interior spruce stands in the McGregor Model Forest in northern B.C. Infestations were common in both the Sub-Boreal Spruce (SBS), wet cool (SBSwk) and very wet cool (SBSvk) biogeoclimatic subzones,...

Thesis (M.P.M.)--Simon Fraser University, 1997. Includes bibliographical references.