Research on color preference of tiny insects and its application
Date Issued
2009
Date
2009
Author(s)
Lin, Meng-Ying
Abstract
Tiny insects, such as thrips, whiteflies and aphids, are very small in their body size and can easily hide themselves in host plants, and therefore they can avoid the chemical sprays. Since the difficulty of chemical control to the hidden pests, color traps for luring the tiny pests have been used for a long tradition. Some insects can be attracted by particular wavelengths, so identifying the attractive wavelengths for inducing the color preference behavior of pests can reveal the critical factor for developing color traps. In the study, color papers with different wavelength range within the visible spectrum of insects are introduced to test color preference of the pests without the information of photoreceptor spectral sensitivity obtained from electrophysiological recordings in the compound eyes. After color paper preference test, it indicated that flower thrips, Frankliniella intonsa, prefer wavelength 508-560 nm (4-9-day-old) and 578-700 nm (1-3-day-old) than blue wavelengths which were preferred significantly in field trapping test. However, the erythrina eulophid wasps, Quadrastichus erythrinae, perform similar color preference in both field test and color paper preference test. According to the results, color paper preference test in the study is useful to test color preference of some insects but not suitable to every taxon. Light in natural environment is more complex than in laboratory. Thus, to test the color preference of specific insect, such as F. intonsa, it might process both field test and color paper preference test.
Subjects
Frankliniella intonsa
Quadrastichus erythrinae
color preference
spectral reflectance
sticky color paper
Type
thesis
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