| Abstract: | The primary purpose of a national plant protection organization is to prevent the spread of quarantine pests. Such pests are characterized according to their predicted capability to be of economic importance in new areas. The determination of the potential of an exotic pest to cause crop losses is a preliminary component in a pest risk assessment (PRA) process. The initial PRA step includes two distinct ecological analyses. The first must predict the expected extent and frequency to which a new pest population will attain and/or surpass the economic injury level. This is necessary to justify the classification of an exotic pest as being of quarantine significance. Secondly, a PRA must estimate the likelihood of establishment for those quarantine pests for which an entry pathway exists. Both require that bioclimatic comparisons be made between the areas of origin and distinct target destinations. The bioclimatic methodologies of the past are currently being enhanced to specify more precisely‘quarantine pest zones of ecological equivalency’, i.e. areas within which the behavior of a specific quarantine pest can be expected to be the same. The information derived from studies that provide a basis for forecasting the behavior of indigenous pests can also be used in PRA. |
