Miconia biocontrol: Where are we going and when will we get there?

We have made much progress in evaluating potential agents for biocontrol of miconia, and several appear likely to be suitable for future introduction to Hawaiÿi. Unfortunately, none of them is an obvious silver bullet. We face the challenge of prioritizing the existing candidates and inventing the combination of agents that will achieve our goals. Now is an opportune moment to reassess our goals for miconia biocontrol and strategize how we will combine biocontrol and other management tools to successfully manage this weed for the long term. Our goals and choices for biocontrol should take into account the densities and distributions of existing miconia populations and projections for their expansion, as well as the sustainability and compatibility of other control methods. Critical areas of substantial uncertainty, where we may benefit from focused research, include: impacts and dispersal of biocontrol agents, potential interactions among agents, interactions between agents and their natural enemies, and dynamics of multi-melastome host use by agents. Some questions will be important to answer before releasing new agents; others may be essentially unanswerable until post-release. We should make our goals and strategies as explicit as possible, then adapt as we encounter future realities.