As it gets closer to the final release date, to avoid introducing last-minute regressions, the release team limits the number of changes and their impact: only extremely-critical and non-invasive bug fixes can get merged.
For example, morphological and life-history evolution in native soapberry bugs on invasive trees in Florida has likely increased soapberry bug fitness several fold over the past few decades (Carroll et al. 1997, 1998).
As Anthony DePalma explained here this morning, the Forest Service went to great lengths to get inside the mind of the emerald ash borer, a vivid-green, bug-eyed invasive insect that is wreaking havoc on trees in 15 states.
— Eric Asimov The Economist: Destroying tomato, pepper and grape harvests, stink bugs — aggressive invasives brought to the United States from Asia in the 1990's — have no predators and are devastating crops.
This study evaluated the effect of natural enemies on eggs of the exotic invasive brown marmorated stink bug Halyomorpha halys (Stål) in experimental plots comprising species pairs of 16 ornamental trees and shrub genera from either Eurasia or North America and in wooded areas adjacent to the plots.
Similarly, the rate of successful attack on related invasive vine seeds by native soapberry bugs in Australia has more than doubled during the same period (Carroll et al. 2005).
There was a stretch of a few months, last year, when they ran an Audible ad starring a character named Ian, and I was convinced that they were bugging me in an even more invasive way, until I found out that the ad was general and that my name had become common enough for commercials.
There are arson dogs, of course, but there are also dogs trained to detect bed bugs and dogs that specialize in locating invasive quagga mussels at boat landings.
Brown marmorated stink bug, Halyomorpha halys (Stål), is a highly polyphagous invasive species attacking both cultivated and wild plants increasing its threat to ecosystems as a global pest.
Examples include copepods adapting to different salinity levels (Lee and Petersen 2002), soapberry bugs adapting to new host plants (Carroll et al. 2001), and invasive weeds adapting through mimicry to evade eradication (Barrett 1983).
