Pest survey card on Spodoptera frugiperda

This pest survey card was prepared in the context of the EFSA mandate on plant pest surveillance (M‐2017‐0137), at the request of the European Commission. Its purpose is to guide the Member States in preparing data and information for Spodoptera frugiperda surveys. These are required to design statistically sound and risk‐based pest surveys, in line with current international standards.Spodopterafrugiperdais a regulated priority Union quarantine pest in the EU and Member States are therefore required to perform annual surveys. Emergency measures are in place to prevent the introduction into and the spread within the EU. Spodoptera frugiperda is not known to occur in the EU, but it could become established in some coastal Mediterranean regions that remain frost‐free all year. Climate is therefore a limiting factor for the establishment of the pest. The optimum temperature for development from egg to adult is 28°C.Spodopterafrugiperda is a polyphagous pest and detection surveys should mainly target maize, rice and sorghum, while delimiting surveys should cover all host species in the survey area. Due to the high spread capacity of the adults, detection of the mothat low levels of population is crucial to avoid further spread of the pest.Detection surveys tosubstantiate pest freedom should be based on a trapping strategy.After a finding, trapping should be intensified in the neighbouring fields and combined with the visualexamination of host plants for the symptoms and early stages of S. frugiperda. Morphological and molecular procedures are both available for the identification of S. frugiperda. If experience is lacking or the purpose is to identify the early stages of the pest, molecular methods are preferred over the morphological ones.