Vespa velutina: dal suo arrivo in Europa alla sua gestione in Italia con il progetto Life Stopvespa.

Vespa velutina Lepeletier 1836, accidentally introduced into France in 2004, is rapidly colonizing other European countries. Since 2007, the University of Turin has established a monitoring system in Piedmont and Liguria with the aim to detect its presence early. This system allowed to trap the first specimen in 2012 in Loano municipality (Savona district). Furthermore, in 2013 others reports from Piedmont and Liguria of both V. velutina nests and adults were received. As a consequence Department of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences (DISAFA) held informative meetings and produced some publications. The actions against V. velutina spread developed by DISAFA were not supported enough by Italian funds; therefore DISAFA, in cooperation with the Department of Electronics and Telecommunications (DET) of the Politecnico di Torino, decided to apply for European LIFE funding programme. The project "Spatial containment of Vespa velutina in Italy and establishment of an Early Warning and Rapid Response System" was selected and financed by the European Commission. The project started in 2015. It aims to: control the population by nests destruction; increase knowledge on V. velutina biology, ecology and spread; implement a harmonic radar to locate the nests; assess economic losses of beekeeping industry and ecological impacts on wild insects; implement an Early Warning and Rapid Response System in Italy. Due to its spreading ability, the European Commission has included V. velutina in the first list of invasive alien species of Union concern. This means that European Union the member states should control or eradicate the species. Considering that V. velutina is already present in several European and Asian countries, in 2015 COLOSS association, as suggest by DISAFA, established an international task force, to connect different institutions and share knowledge.