Leafy elodea

Leafy elodea (Egeria densa) is a submerged aquatic perennial weed that grows in shallow, slow-moving or stationary water bodies which are rich in nutrients. It is native to parts of South America and occurs mainly in southern New South Wales and south-east Queensland.

This sub-project will import the promising candidate biocontrol agent for leafy elodea, the leaf-mining fly Hydrellia egeriae, from South Africa where it has been released, into a containment facility in Australia. Once a culture of the fly is established, host-specificity testing will be performed with five Australian native species closely related to the target weed.

Kumaran Nagalingam of CSIRO is leading this sub-project. For more information on the project and results, please visit the site: https://research.csiro.au/weed-biocontrol/leafy-elodea-biological-control/