CANBERRA, March 2 (Xinhua) -- Australia's national science agency has released a tiny aquatic weevil into a waterway to prevent the spread of an invasive weed.
After years of research, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) on Thursday announced it has released the cabomba weevil into Queensland's Lake Kurwongbah to fight the cabomba weed.
Native to South America and first introduced to Australia as an aquarium plant in 1967, cabomba is a fast-spreading aquatic weed that experts have warned could take over Australia's waterways.
The release of the weevil is the first time a biocontrol agent has been deployed against the weed anywhere in the world.
A team from the CSIRO tested the weevil on 17 native plant species closely related to the cabomba and found it ignored the Australian plants, continuing to feed only on the weed.
"Cabomba grows up to 5 centimeters a day, strangling native ecosystems, choking waterways and impacting native aquatic animal and plant populations," CSIRO scientist Kumaran Nagalingam said in a media release.
"We also know that platypus numbers are lower in cabomba-infested creeks compared to those un-infested in northern Queensland."
"Our research in South America shows that the cabomba weevil spends its entire life feeding only on cabomba and extensive research in Australian quarantine has confirmed the cabomba weevil is not a risk to native plant species."
Every individual weevil that was imported to Australia was inspected for parasites and pathogens before leaving quarantine and a purpose-built nursery has been constructed near Lake Kurwongbah to rear more weevils for future releases.
The CSIRO has undertaken the project with one of Australia's largest water companies, Seqwater, which currently spends 170,000 Australian dollars (about 115,000 U.S. dollars) every year manually removing cabomba from three of its lakes. ■
