The South American tomato pinworm Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) has aggressively invaded the African continent. Since its first detection in North Africa in Morocco and Tunisia in 2008, it has successfully invaded the entire southern, eastern and western Africa, where it has been on the offensive, causing significant damage to Solanaceous food crops. While control of this prolific invader is primarily based on conventional synthetic pesticides, this form of control is consistently losing societal approval owing to (1) pesticide resistance development and consequential loss of field efficacy; (2) growing public health concerns; (3) environmental contamination and loss of biological diversity and its associated ecological services; and (4) unsustainable costs, particularly for resource-poor African farmers. As such, more ecologically sound pest management strategies, e.g., the use of natural substances (NSs), may offer a more sustainable approach to tackling this offensive. A systematic literature search through digital libraries and online databases (JSTOR, PubMed, Web of Science, SCOPUS and Google Scholar) was conducted using predetermined keywords on T. absoluta, e.g., South American tomato pinworm. We use this to explain the invasion of T. absoluta in Africa, citing mechanisms facilitating African invasion and exploring the potential of its control using diverse biological control agents, natural and low-risk substances. Specifically, we explore how botanicals, entomopathogens, semiochemicals, predators, parasitoids, host plant resistance, sterile insect technique and others have been spatially employed to control T. absoluta and discuss the potential of these control agents in African landscapes using more integrated approaches. We discuss the use of NSs as assets to general insect pest control, some potential associated liabilities and explain the potential use and barriers to adoption in African systems from a legislative, economic, ecological and social standpoint.

In nature, insects concurrently face multiple environmental stressors, a scenario likely increasing with climate change. Integrated stress resistance (ISR) thus often improves fitness and could drive invasiveness, but how physiological mechanisms influence invasion has lacked examination. Here, we investigated cross‐tolerance to abiotic stress factors which may influence range limits in the South American tomato pinworm—a global invader that is an ecologically and socially damaging crop pest. Specifically, we tested the effects of prior rapid cold‐ and heat‐hardening (RCH and RHH), fasting, and desiccation on cold and heat tolerance traits, as well as starvation and desiccation survivability betweenT. absolutalife stages. Acclimation effects on critical thermal minima (CT_min) and maxima (CT_max) were inconsistent, showing significantly deleterious effects of RCH on adult CT_maxand CT_minand, conversely, beneficial acclimation effects of RCH on larval CT_min. While no beneficial effects of desiccation acclimation were recorded for desiccation tolerance, fasted individuals had significantly higher survival in adults, whereas fasting negatively affected larval tolerances. Furthermore, fasted and desiccation acclimated adults had significantly higher starvation tolerance, showing strong evidence for cross‐tolerance. Our results show context‐dependent ISR traits that may promoteT. absolutafitness and competitiveness. Given the frequent overlapping occurrence of these divergent stressors, ISR reported here may thus partly elucidate the observed rapid global spread ofT. absolutainto more stressful environments than expected. This information is vital in determining the underpinnings of multistressor responses, which are fundamental in forecasting species responses to changing environments and management responses.

Gonimbrasia belina, known as the mopane worm, is a large edible caterpillar in tropical and subtropical regions. However, little is known about the bioecology of this species as influenced by its host trees. This study evaluated the importance of different potential host trees in understanding mopane worms’ behaviour and spatial distribution. To assess their relative importance, the study compared models incorporating various mopane worm host trees and predictor variables. Using the species distribution modelling (SDM) package in R, an ensemble of random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM), and boosted regression tree (BRT) algorithms were used to assess the spatial extent of mopane worm distribution in Southern Africa. Four host tree-based scenarios were developed to assess their contribution to the relative distribution of the mopane worm i.e. (1) by excluding all the potential host trees as explanatory variables and considering only the environmental variables, (2) focusing on the primary host tree, Colophospermum mopane as an explanatory variable together with the other environmental variables, (3) incorporating all the host trees, including C. mopane and (4) examining all other host trees excluding C. mopane. Results demonstrated that incorporating all host trees enhanced the models’ predictive abilities (mean AUC = 0.87) underscoring the significant impact of the alternative host trees on the mopane worm distribution patterns beyond just the C. mopane. This study highlights the significance of host trees in predicting the behaviour and distribution of mopane worm populations, providing valuable insights and decision-making for mopane worm use as an alternative protein source, conservation efforts, and land management practices.