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The 355th Symposium on Sustainable Humanosphere
Fire Ant Workshop 2017

Update: 2018/02/06

Date 2017-10-10 13:00–17:30
Place Campus Plaza Kyoto, Lecture Room 2

Fire Ant Workshop 2017 was held at Campus Plaza Kyoto 10th Oct. 2017. A total of 4 speakers including two fire ant experts from United States were invited to give a smeinar talk. The workshop was joined by more than 150 participants. All participants showed tremendous interest of the workshop and addressed a vast numnber of questions towards the speakers during the discussion session. This suggests that awareness level of fire ant has been improved, which is beneficial to the success of the fire ant campaign in Japan.

Purpose and contents

The red imported fire ants, arguably one the world’s most devastating invasive ants, have been discovered in numerous seaports of Japan recently (Kobe, Nagoya, Osaka and Tokyo), raising a serious concern that this invasive ant might have established in other places in Japan but remain largely undetected. In response to this, the Ministry of Environment in accordance of the Japanese Pest Control Association (JPCA) is funding a nationwide surveillance project where a total of 68 seaports in Japan are subject to a detailed survey regime in next few months.

To ensure this project is carried out with an efficient manner, the one-day workshop was held to provide a forum to educate/equip relevant personnel involved in this project with proper knowledge of identification, biology and control of fire ants. Two experts with international expertise on fire ants from the US were invited to present as lectures. They were also joined by additional two scientists from Japan including Prof. Tsuji (University of the Ryukyus) and Dr. Chin-Cheng (Scotty) Yang who have feateured current situations of fire ants in Japan and Taiwan.

Concluding remarks
As the Japanese government has launched a fire ant eradication campaign recently, this workshop has brought knowledge and experience in time and made this eradication program possible and feasible. As the fire ant invasion remains at its early stage, the level of societal commitment is extremely critical. The major impact of this workshop is that critical information regarding fire ants get to be delivered to the audience in a timely manner and expectedly ensures the audience stay alerted and committed for fire ant invasion.

Programme

13:00–13:10 Opening
13:10–14:30 Identification and ecology of fire ant
DeWayne Shoemaker
14:30–14:40 Tea break
14:40–16:00 Bait development and area-wide control of fire ant
David Oi
16:00–16:30 Current status of fire ant in Japan
Kazuki Tsuji
16:30–17:00 Movement control of fire ant in Taiwan
Chin-Cheng (Scotty) Yang
17:00–17:30 Discussion
Symposium-0355a Symposium-0355b

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6 February, 2018.
22 August, 2017.

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