Investigation of weevils host plant shifts in South Africa

This fieldtrip was part of Dr. Stephan Hansen’s PhD thesis; co-supervised by Prof. Pia Addison (Stellenbosch University, South Africa) and Dr. Julien Haran (CBGP, France).
The aim of this mission was to identify and collect specimens of pest weevils, belonging to the Phlyctinus complex (Haran et al. 2020; Hevin et al. 2022), in known infested areas, but also in new sites to be discovered with non-invasive wild populations. To this end, we scoured the Western Cape in search of potentially interesting areas (hydrometry, host plants, etc.) and active populations (mainly at night).

From left to right in the first picture: Dr. Julien Haran ; Dr. Stephan Hansen ; Dr. Marion Javal ; Dr. Rémi Allio