credit:
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/planthealth/ppq-program-overview/plant-protection-today/articles/lab-pitl
Identifying Harmful Pests Helps Protect U.S. Agriculture and Natural Resources
By Sharon Lucik
USDA’s Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) program continues its Science and Technology (S&T) laboratory article series by highlighting the Pest Identification Technology Laboratory (PITL), formerly known as the Ft. Collins Lab. The PITL develops digital and molecular technologies to make pest identification easier and more efficient.
“PPQ’s mission to safeguard agriculture and facilitate safe trade drives what we do here,” said PITL Acting Director Alison Neeley. “Our staff and cooperators have developed an incredible inventory of easy-to-use online products and resources to identify pests of concern. We also explore how other technologies—such as geometric morphometrics, which uses differences in shape and size to distinguish between organisms—might be used to accurately identify pests from images.”
The PITL staff cooperates with taxonomic experts from around the country and the world to populate their digital toolchest. In addition to fact sheets, identification keys, screening aids, and mobile apps, the toolchest also includes a platform that enables both professionals and amateurs to search, share, and develop identification resources and tools. Anyone can access the program’s website atidtools.org, which presents a wealth of pest ID resources.
PPQ’s National Identification Services (NIS) staff and area identifiers are core users of PITL’s tools and resources, especially imageID—a searchable image database and essential tool for remote identification.
“The success of imageID and a request from NIS sparked us to develop another new product, called PPQ IDaids,” said PITL Biological Scientist Amanda Redford. “PPQ IDaids is a secure and searchable interface for pest identification resources that will complement imageID. IDaids will also provide PPQ with a simple and user-friendly way to share and distribute identification resources, as well as a method to bundle resources into training modules for new identifiers.”
On the molecular side, PITL scientists are developing taxon-specific tests to rapidly detect and identify important insect plant pests, such as Old World bollworm. “We have developed technology that allows us to screen an entire trap sample of 1,000 moths in a single reaction,” said PITL Biological Scientist Todd Gilligan. “PITL also developed the methods that are being used to implement molecular identification at USDA plant inspection stations, and PITL is coordinating the molecular research across several agencies and cooperators to support the Asian giant hornet eradication program in Washington State.”