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8 June 2020 How Far Can Rhynchophorus palmarum (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) Fly?
Mark S. Hoddle, Christina D. Hoddle, Ivan Milosavljević
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Abstract

The palm weevil, Rhynchophorus palmarum (L.), was first recorded in San Diego County, CA in 2011 and breeding populations were recovered from infested Canary Islands date palms, Phoenix canariensis, in San Ysidro, San Diego County, in 2015. This palm pest presents a significant threat to California's edible date industry as Phoenix dactylifera is a recorded host for this weevil. The flight capabilities of R. palmarum are unknown which limits understanding of rates of natural dispersal. In response to this knowledge deficit, 24-h flight mill trials were conducted with field-collected male and female weevils. A total of 87 weevils (49 females and 38 males) were used in experiments, ∼6% failed to fly >1 km in 24 h and were excluded from analyses. Of those 82 weevils flying >1 km in 24 h, the average distance flown by males and females was ∼41 and ∼53 km, respectively. Approximately 10% of females flew >100 km in 24 h, with two (∼4%) females flying >140 km. The maximum recorded distance flown by a male weevil was 95 km. Flight activity was predominantly diurnal and flying weevils exhibited an average weight loss of ∼18% while non-flying control weevils lost ∼13% body weight in 24 h. The combined flight distances for male and female weevils exhibited a heavy-tailed platykurtic distribution. Flight mill data for R. palmarum are compared to similarly collected flight mill data for two other species of invasive palm weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier) and Rhynchophorus vulneratus (Panzer).

© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
Mark S. Hoddle, Christina D. Hoddle, and Ivan Milosavljević "How Far Can Rhynchophorus palmarum (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) Fly?," Journal of Economic Entomology 113(4), 1786-1795, (8 June 2020). https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/toaa115
Received: 6 February 2020; Accepted: 4 May 2020; Published: 8 June 2020
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KEYWORDS
body size
dispersal
flight assay
flight mill
kurtosis
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