Potential Use of Acoustics in Pear Psylla (Cacopsylla Pyricola) Integrated Pest Management PDF Download

Author: Dowen Mae Ibarra Jocson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Pear psylla
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) employs both chemical and non-chemical strategies. In both cases, foundational research is required and necessary to create an effective management tool. This dissertation explores the development of an alternative, non-chemical management tool for pear psylla (Cacopsylla pyricola) exploiting their vibrational communication. The first chapter reviews pear psylla biology and history as well as the study of vibrational communication, most recently coined as Biotremology. In the first manuscript, I characterized the mating songs of male and female pear psylla adults and assessed whether temperature and presence of conspecific individuals altered the male signal characteristics. I show that some song traits are affected by temperature while some are not. Further, that experience with the opposite sex increases the likelihood of males producing a vibrational mating song. The second manuscript explores three vibrational delivery methods to determine the efficacy of mating disruption (MD) in pear psylla employing the two MD hypotheses: competitive versus noncompetitive MD. My results showed that white noise (noncompetitive MD) was effective in reducing mating rates in pear psylla, but only when played directly to the plant substrate. Male song playback (competitive MD) was more effective than the other types of playback when going through the air using speakers. This suggests that we may be able to employ both types of mating disruption through different delivery methods. In the third manuscript, I set out to test vibrational playbacks as an enhancement to traps for monitoring and as a tool to disrupt mating in pear psylla in an orchard setting. The results showed that vibrational playback enhanced sticky card trap catch and was female-biased. Vibrational playback was more effective at reducing offspring when using white noise as vibrational playback, especially in the Anjou pear variety. The results from these experiments will contribute to the body of knowledge and tools for pear psylla IPM and as a basis for developing a similar tool for other pests that use vibrational communication.