No one knows for sure how the kudzu bug first appeared in the United States in 2009, but it's been blanketing homes and people with a foul-smelling odor ever since.
Thankfully, a recent discovery by Auburn researchers may be the key to curbing the rapidly expanding insect population before the swarm returns with the start of fall.
"This year we found two parasitoid, [parasitic insects]," said Xing Ping Hu, Auburn University entomologist researcher. "One is a parasitoid fly that will pray on kudzu bug adults. Most recently, we found a parasitoid wasp that will pray on kudzu bug eggs."
With a parasitism rate between 40-95 percent, Hu said the wasp is a game changer.
Hu said his research assistant, Julien Golec, graduate researcher, made the discovery during a routine investigation of kudzu bug damage in a soybean field.
Noticing there were black masses inside the translucent kudzu eggs, Golec said he suspected he had found evidence of a local predatory wasp using the kudzu eggs as repositories for its own
The hunch was later confirmed through further investigation.
"The wasp species is actually native to Asia, but somehow it's appeared in the U.S.," Golec said. "Now we have a multi-faceted approach to controlling kudzu bug. We can get rid of it in two life stages, which will definitely provide more control. It could significantly decrease kudzu populations."
The news comes as a welcome relief to legume farmers, whose soybean and green bean crops have been increasingly overrun with the insects since they spread from Georgia in 2009.
Golec said the kudzu beetles, originally native to southeast Asia, have since traveled to every state in the Southeast and as far north as Delaware and Maryland.
Hu first encountered them in northern Alabama in 2010 and has been studying the invasive species ever since.
"My phone was ringing off the hook for many, many days when they got into Alabama," Hu said. "The first year it was two counties, the second it was eight counties, the third year it was 30-something counties and this year it's everywhere."
Hu said the bugs prefer white and light-colored objects to land on and have multiple reasons for spreading so quickly, including powerful flight abilities, abundance of food and a lack of widespread natural predators.
Golec said while the wasp and fly will decrease the kudzu bug over time, it won't completely wipe out the insect population, and advised not to use pesticides because it would affect the predator population.
"The wasp can't hurt people whereas some pesticides have been known to hurt people," said Auburn senior Savannah Duke. "The ones being used now are pretty safe, but people would still rather not bring chemicals into it so I think it will be pretty popular. I know the thought of using a natural way of keeping the population down instead of a pesticide will probably sell to a lot of the public."
The kudzu bugs will return to cities around the country at the start of fall, but Auburn researchers have already started testing the parasite insects to implement and augment their process when ready.
"There's a lot of problems, but hopefully there's plenty of solutions," Golec said.
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