This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Invasive alien brambles have been spreading across South Africa since the early 1900s, having come from North America and Europe. All brambles fall within the genus Rubus.
Their common names in South Africa are braam (Afrikaans), ijingijolo (isiZulu) and monoko-metsi (seSotho). Over the decades, these plants have crept into tree plantations, pastures and native grasslands. Dense, thorny thickets now choke open spaces and impede livestock and wildlife movement.
They restrict access to water, smother young trees used for timber, interfere with plantation management and disrupt roadsides. They have become one of the most widespread and damaging weeds, though it's hard to estimate how much land they cover because satellite imagery doesn't capture them in grasslands and they "hide" under forest canopy. Beyond ruining hiking experiences and doing agricultural damage, these infestations also displace native vegetation and negatively affect specialist flower visitors like butterflies.
People have tried to manage invasive brambles, yet traditional chemical and mechanical controls don't work. This is due to the sheer scale of the invasions, costs that are too high for low-value land, rugged terrain that limits access and the plant's ability to resprout from rootstocks or re-emerge from bird-dispersed seeds. Consequently, there is an urgent need for additional management tools.
Biological control (biocontrol) has been considered in South Africa, but never tried. My research focuses on biological control of weeds, which works by introducing specialized natural enemies from the plant's native range (where they came from originally) to suppress its growth or reproduction. Before any natural enemy is released, it undergoes rigorous testing in quarantine to make sure it only damages the weed.
By using tested, host-specific natural enemies that cannot survive on any other host, biocontrol aims to restore ecosystems with minimal disturbance. Biocontrol offers a proven safety record that far outweighs the hazards of traditional control methods. The first step is to be sure what the weed is, where it came from, what its natural enemies are and how much of a problem it is.
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