Insect pests of processed grain products exploit patchy and ephemeral resources in human created landscapes found in and around food processing and storage facilities. I have been investigating the mechanistic and functional aspects of red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum, patch exploitation and how this influences spatial distribution and our ability to effectively monitor their populations. Males and females of this species were highly mobile, visited multiple patches of flour and females laid eggs in multiple patches. Patch quality (e.g., patch size, prior exposure of patch to males) and prior experience influenced the number of eggs that females laid in patches of flour. Differences in patch exploitation strategies between the sexes can also influence their responses to monitoring traps that use food oils and male produced aggregation pheromones as attractants. Males and females were shown to differ in their response to traps with different combinations of attractants and these differences were consistent with predictions based on their patch exploitation strategies.
Species 1: Coleoptera Tenebrionidae Tribolium castaneum (red flour beetle)
Keywords: patch exploitation, pheromones
The ESA 2001 Annual Meeting - 2001: An Entomological Odyssey of ESA