Herbivorous Insect Fauna of Mile-A-Minute Weed, Persicaria Perfoliata (Polygonaceae), In Japan (Scientific Notes) (Report‪)‬

The mile-a-minute weed, Persicaria perfoliata (L.) H. Gross (Polygonaceae), was first established in the United States in Pennsylvania and Maryland in the 1930s (Wu et al. 2002), and has been placed on noxious weed lists in several states of the United States because of the damage it causes in infested orchards, nurseries, and horticultural crops (Oliver & Coile 1994; Wu et al. 2002). Because of its rapid growth, the weed readily invades forests or forest edges (Wu et al. 2002). In addition, the weed's thorny vines impede movement of wildlife and interfere with human activities (Okay 1997). By 2003, the plant was found in 8 states (Delaware, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and Connecticut) and the District of Columbia (Lamont & Fitzgerald 2000; Price 2001). Fifteen additional states are currently at risk of becoming infested with this weed (Okay 1997). In the southern United States, mile-a-minute weed could behave as a perennial plant (Stevens 1994; Ding et al. 2000). Recently, mile-a-minute weed was targeted for biological control. Several natural enemies of mile-a-minute weed have been recognized in China (Ding et al. 2004), but little information is available on other potential biological control agents from other regions of the plant's large native range (Ohwi 1965; Satake et al. 2000). We examined the weed in Japan because parts of Japan are in the native range of mile-a-minute weed (Ohwi 1965) and those areas are a good climatic match to the northeastern United States, where release of natural enemies is intended (Reardon, unpublished data). Here we report the results of a survey made in 2004 and 2005 of the herbivorous insect fauna of mile-a-minute weed of Japan.