Rearing the brown stink bug (Euschistus servus): maintaining a continuous colony

Rearing Euschistus servus (Say) is problematic in that third or fourth generation adults can become reproductively inactive. This phenomenon can occur under typical summer environmental conditions. Recent field studies showed that E. servus is bivoltine throughout a large portion of the Midwest and Southeast, and the timing of generations may be linked with predictable photoperiods. In this experiment, we exposed E. servus to static photoperiods from egg to adult and recorded when females became reproductively active. A subset of E. servus that were not reproductively active was moved to different photoperiodic conditions to test if switching could initiate oviposition. Results indicate that E. servus is sensitive to changing photoperiods and that switching environmental conditions can initiate oviposition.