Scale insects are prevalent urban landscape pests and are considered to move between neighboring trees via wind-aided and phoretic dispersal by cryptic, short-lived crawlers. Crawling likely plays a central role in these dispersal processes by shaping their ability to move onto phoretic hosts or to locate host plants and/or settling locations after being blown off a tree...
Megaponera analis is an obligate termitophagous species endemic to sub-Saharan Africa. The species forages by sending out scouts to search for termites. Once termites are located, the scouts return to the nest and recruit nest mates. Scouts face unpredictable environmental conditions, including sudden flooding, temperature changes, high winds and predation by natural enemies. We...
Dispersal is an important behavior in many animals, with profound effects on individual fitness and the evolutionary trajectories of populations. This is especially true within taxa with particular life-history strategies, for example those that exploit ephemeral habitat. Further, dispersal is commonly seen to be part of behavioral syndromes - suites of traits that covary across...
Pear psyllid (Cacopsylla pyri) is a persistent pest to the pear industry; with an estimated cost of £5 million per annum in the UK alone. This phloem feeding insect is resistant to a large proportion of approved pesticides, necessitating the use of alternative control strategies. Many pear growers practice integrated pest management (IPM) of pear psyllid, focusing on maximizing...
Death feigning is thought to have evolved primarily as a predator avoidance behavior, and has been reported in 10 of the 31 orders of insects. However, there have been no reports of death-feigning behavior in Mecoptera species. We found that larvae of two scorpionfly species, Panorpa japonica and P. pryeri, showed death feigning in response to external stimuli by brush poking...
We explored the potential of differences in foraging preferences to contribute to long-term species coexistence in aquatic predatory hemipterans. We hypothesized that predatory hemipterans would have distinct foraging preferences informed by their morphology. We used a prey choice experiment to test whether Belostoma flumineum, Pelocoris biimpressus, and Ranatra australis...
Artificial light at night (ALAN) affects species-specific communication in a wide range of nocturnal species, including fireflies (Lampyridae). Fireflies rely on bioluminescent signals for communicating. In this study, we conducted two manipulative field experiments to evaluate the effect of artificial light at night on the flashing activity of male and female neotropical...
Considering recent developments in gene manipulation methods for honey bees, establishing simple and robust assay systems which can analyze behavioral components in detail inside a laboratory is important for the rise of behavioral genetics in the honey bee. We focused on the antennal movements of the honey bee and developed an experimental system for analyzing the antennal...
Tactics that manipulate insect behavior are a component of many pest management strategies. Pheromone-based mating disruption is one such tactic widely used in agricultural systems, but few studies have assessed disrupting other mate communication mechanisms, such as acoustic signals. The most destructive pear pest in the Pacific Northwest USA, pear psylla (Cacopsylla pyricola...
Anthocoris nemoralis is the dominant predator of pear sucker (Cacopsylla pyri) in the UK. Anthocoris nemoralis migrates into orchards in spring or is introduced as a biocontrol agent, reaching peak population levels in July-August, contributing to effective control of summer pear sucker populations. However, due to temperature dependent development and metabolism there are...
Varroa-sensitive hygiene (VSH) is highly influenced by the worker bee’s olfactory ability. Workers bred for VSH and non-selected control line workers were tested for differences in their speed and perception ability when presented with highly diluted stimuli. Four different substances (citral – dilution 1:1300, linalool dilution 1:1300, Varroa-parasitized brood extract...
Insect exposure to their predators can affect individuals and community processes, through direct consumption or nonlethal effects. However, the links between behavioral and physiological responses and stimuli needed for the development of predator avoidance are not clear. We subjected desert locusts (Schistocerca gregaria) to three nonlethal treatments, using great tits (Parus...
Bees provide pollination services in both agricultural and natural ecosystems. However, invasive ants that exploit floral nectar in these landscapes can compete with bees for resources, with implications for pollinator resource acquisition, plant fitness, and, ultimately, ecosystem function. While interference competition has been described between bees and nectivorous, non...
Aedes aegypti, presented with a source of L-lactic and 2-ketoglutaric acid in a wind-tunnel bioassay, takeoff, fly upwind, and land on the odorant substrate at rates comparable to those exhibited by mosquitoes presented with a skin-odor stimulus. Addition of carbon dioxide decreased takeoff latency but was not required to elicit upwind flight nor landings. Ketoglutaric acid, a...
Hymenopteran females are mostly highly selective, choosing their mating partner according to male quality signals, and may also signal their fertility through chemical advertisement. Male insects, in turn, often display a complex set of courtship behaviors to allure females to mate. In this study we explored the mechanisms triggering courtship behaviors in the oligolectic bee...
Hematophagous arthropods often choose predictable feeding sites on their hosts´ body, presumably to maximize blood uptake while minimizing costs. Feeding sites can be host-specific, mediated by intrinsic host characters and/or specific preferences of the blood feeder. We investigated feeding site specificity in a community of frog-biting midges (Corethrella spp.) and frog hosts...
Leafcutter ants live in symbiosis with fungi they grow for food and different bacteria they use for protection against fungal parasites. Some workers are covered with a layer of bacteria like Pseudonocardia, but the behavior of these workers has been the subject of little research. In order to obtain a clearer understanding of this phenomenon in Acromyrmex octospinosus, two...
Although human skin odor is thought to be the cue that anthropophilic mosquitoes use to discriminate us from other potential hosts, the precise details of how they use skin odor to find and land on a human is unclear. We found that Aedes aegypti land on a source of skin odor without a co-located visual cue. By collecting human odor on glass beads and using identical glass beads...
Bumble bees (Bombus; Hymenoptera) are crucial pollinators for many agricultural crops, but their numbers have declined - with climate change as a possible driver. Different aspects of local weather conditions can have substantial effects on bumble bees’ ability to forage. Here we made 501 observations of bumblebee workers on bramble flowers (Rubus fruticosus) to explore how the...
Social insects have high levels of cooperation and division of labor. In bumble bees this is partly size-based, with larger bees performing tasks outside the nest and smaller bees remaining inside, although bumble bees still display considerable behavioral plasticity. The level of specialization in tasks outside the colony, including foraging, guarding and drifting (entering a...
The Asian citrus psyllid (ACP) Diaphorina citri (Hemiptera:Liviidae), vector of huanglongbing disease, displays a high degree of color polyphenism. In the adult stage, ACP exhibits abdominal colors that can be separated into three color groupings: blue-green, grey-brown and orange-yellow. Color morphology has been shown to influence important and energetically costly psyllid life...
The Avian Vampire Fly, Philornis downsi, has invaded the Galapagos Islands, where it causes high mortality of endemic and native landbird species, including most species of Darwin’s finches. Control methods are under development, but key information is missing about the reproductive biology of P. downsi and the behavior of flies in and near nests of their hosts. We used external...