Progress in the use of detection dogs for emerald ash borer monitoring

Oxford

2020

326-330

Sonderdruck

40000949

Early detection of infestation by the emerald ash borer (EAB), Agrilus planipennis is extremely difficult; hence
developing additional methods is desirable. We built on the successful use of canine scent detection for
the invasive long-horned beetles Anoplophora glabripennis and Anoplophora chinensis and trained six dogs in
detection of EAB. A first test series was performed to evaluate detection accuracy of five of these dogs. Seven
different experimental settings were tested under single blind conditions: (1) forest nursery, (2) piles of firewood,
(3) firewood on the ground, (4) ash logs on the ground, (5) old urban ash trees, (6) urban forest with ash trees
and (7) natural forest with ash trees. In total, 214 positive samples were presented to the dogs, out of which 20
remained undetected. The experiments ascertained sensitivity (correct positives of all positives) ranging from
73.3 to 100 percent and specificity (correct negatives of all negatives) from 88.9 to 99.8 percent in the tested
settings. This initial study demonstrates that trained dogs are able to detect EAB scent from sources such as
larval galleries in bark/wood, frass, living or dead larvae or dead dry beetles. The numbers of tested dogs and
test series were limited, and further studies are needed to confirm the initial results. However, the preliminary
findings demonstrate the potential of the method particularly for inspection of wood or plants at entry points.