Dear colleagues,
our new paper on mating disruption of an insect pest using vibrational
noise has just been published. We believe that the approach holds a lot
of promise, and it's significant also because it shows that it's
possible to develop innovative pest control methods using basic
knowledge about animal acoustics. Details below, please write me or the
senior author for reprints if you do not have access.
Mating disruption of a grapevine pest using mechanical vibrations: from
laboratory to the field
Jernej Polajnar, Anna Eriksson, Meta Virant-Doberlet, Valerio Mazzoni
Journal of Pest Science, pp 1-13 (online first, 2016-01-09)
DOI 10.1007/s10340-015-0726-3
<http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10340-015-0726-3>
Mating disruption using mechanical vibrations is a novel idea for
integrated pest management of insect pests. We present results of
research on using artificial vibrational noise to prevent mate
recognition and localization mediated by vibrational signals in the
grapevine pest Scaphoideus titanus. Building on the proof of concept
published previously, mating trials were set up in laboratory to
determine the amplitude threshold for playback efficacy and reveal the
mechanism of its function, while field trials were performed to validate
this threshold and explore the possibility of reducing energy use by
exploiting the diel pattern of this species’ mating activity. The
threshold obtained in laboratory trials—15 μm/s peak amplitude—was
confirmed by measurements of attenuation and insect mating in field
cages at successive distances from the source. We also discovered that
shutting off the disruptive noise between 1000 and 1800 h did not reduce
efficacy of the method in the field, allowing energy saving in this
period. The noise had an all-or-nothing effect on S. titanus mating
behaviour, and we were unable to ascertain the exact mechanism of the
communication breakdown, but the approach appears robust enough to merit
large-scale testing in the future.
Keywords: Scaphoideus titanus, Integrated pest management, Vibrational
noise, Mating disruption, Hemiptera, Vineyard
Best regards,
Jernej
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Jernej Polajnar, PhD
Oddelek za raziskovanje organizmov in ekosistemov / Department of organisms and
ecosystems research
Nacionalni inštitut za biologijo / National institute of biology
Vecna pot 111
SI-1000 Ljubljana
Slovenija
Tel.: +386 (0)59 232 780
Fax: +386 (0)1 2412 980
Skype: jpolajnar
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