Abstract
Wing wear of adult butterflies has been used to record age-related demographic parameters in hundreds of studies, but this technique has surprisingly been rarely used in moths and never in the context of pest management. A method for scoring wing wear of eastern spruce budworm, Choristoneura fumiferana (Clemens), the most severe pest in eastern North American boreal forests, is proposed based on the proportion of forewings covered with scales. Studies conducted in the laboratory reveal a higher level of wing damage for males than females, for 4-day-old individuals than 2-day-old individuals, and for adults that are in contact with host plant material. Males provided with mating opportunities had a lower incidence of wing damage than males deprived of mating opportunity, whereas wing wear of females was independent of the presence or absence of males. In combination with other variables, wing wear of adult spruce budworms may help to identify and forecast migration events.
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Acknowledgments
We thank J. Delisle, R. Johns, J. Régnière, P. Silk, and J. Sweeney for comments on early versions of the manuscript; J. Dedes and G. Mick for providing the spruce budworm pupae; R. Smith for the photographs; and J. Régnière for financial support.
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Rhainds, M., Brodersen, G. Wing wear of adult Choristoneura fumiferana (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) in relation to age, sex, sex ratio, and presence of host plant. Appl Entomol Zool 47, 475–478 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13355-012-0137-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13355-012-0137-3