Unplanned arrivals can bring heartache, however.

Entomologist Tim Haye of the

Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International in Delémont, Switzerland, and
his collaborators spent a decade developing plans to release the European
parasitoid wasp Trichomalus perfectus to control the invasive weevil Ceutorhynchus
obstrictus, a canola plant pest, in Canadian prairies. Then in 2009, the wasp
appeared on its own, in Quebec in Canada. "I was very disappointed," Haye says.

Moreover, such invaders don't always prove fortuitous. A team led by ARS
entomologist Keith Hopper investigated the parasitoid wasp Aphelinus certus as a
biocontrol agent against the soybean aphid (Aphis glycines), but lab tests revealed
it had a broad range of aphid hosts, including some native ones. "I would never
have brought that thing in," says ecologist George Heimpel of the University of
Minnesota in St. Paul, a collaborator on that project. But in 2005, the wasp showed
up in Pennsylvania. Now that it's established, Heimpel's group is studying whether
native aphid populations are in danger. "A lot of people don't care about native
aphids," he says. "I am one of those that do."

Yet such unplanned introductions also hand researchers an opportunity, creating

what Haye calls a gigantic field trial for testing predictions about the control
agent's effects. For the samurai wasp, researchers can now get permission from
state regulators to launch experiments that involve breeding and releasing
accidentally introduced wasp strains in the wild—work that wouldn't be allowed with
intentionally imported insects, which must stay quarantined until federal
regulators are convinced they're safe.