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1 October 2017 Diel Flight Activity and Intra-Plant Distribution of Megacopta cribraria (Hemiptera: Plataspidae) Adults in Soybean
Alejandro I. Del Pozo-Valdivia, Dominic D. Reisig
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Abstract

Megacopta cribraria (F.) (Hemiptera: Plataspidae), the kudzu bug, is a soybean pest in the southeastern United States. Accidentally introduced into Georgia in 2009 from Asia, kudzu bug can reduce up to 60% of soybean yield when left uncontrolled. There is limited information on the life history of this invasive pest in soybean. The main goals of this research were to investigate the daily flight activity pattern and intra-plant distribution of kudzu bug adults in soybean. This was accomplished through experiments in two locations in North Carolina during 2013 in which dispersing adult kudzu bugs captured on white sticky cards between 0900–1700 h were counted hourly, and adults on plants were visually sampled between 0900–1200 h from soybean maturity group IV to VII plants. Adult captures on sticky cards were higher from 1300 to 1500 h across sampling dates, suggesting that dispersal or flight activity peaks during this interval. When soybean plants were visually inspected, most of the adults formed aggregations on the main stem, with aggregations most common in the middle section of plants. The number of aggregations per plant, the number of adults per plant, and the male-to-female ratio were not influenced by maturity group. Soybean plant height did not affect adult densities per plant. However, densities varied depending on the date of sampling. Implications of this research on kudzu bug biology are discussed.

Alejandro I. Del Pozo-Valdivia and Dominic D. Reisig "Diel Flight Activity and Intra-Plant Distribution of Megacopta cribraria (Hemiptera: Plataspidae) Adults in Soybean," Journal of Entomological Science 52(4), 311-322, (1 October 2017). https://doi.org/10.18474/JES16-06PT.1
Received: 1 August 2016; Accepted: 1 January 2017; Published: 1 October 2017
KEYWORDS
adult aggregation
dispersion
plant height
sex ratio
soybean maturity group
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