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ViewAttendees 6

Student 10-Minute Paper

Plant-Insect Ecosystems

Student Competition

Student

Grad Competition P-IE: Ecology

(1st Place) These tarsi were made for walking: Evaluating survival and crawling distance for an invading scale insect

Monday, November 6, 2023
9:48 AM – 10:00 AM ET
Location: Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, Maryland 5-6
In-Person Student Competition
Scale insects are one of the most abundant groups of urban forest pests, but the mechanisms driving their short distance movement - i.e., on or between trees - remain incompletely understood. Members of this group develop through a cryptic, mobile crawler stage following egg hatch and prior to settling at feeding sites. This mobile stage is relatively brief, vulnerable to predation, and frequently targeted with chemical interventions. However, for scale species that have flightless females, it is also the main opportunity for short distance spread. While phoresy and wind-aided dispersal have been implicated in the short distance movement of the damaging, non-native crapemyrtle bark scale (CMBS), Acanthococcus lagerstroemiae (Kuwana) (Hemiptera: Eriococcidae), the longevity and walking capacity of this pest have not been evaluated. We measured survival times for starved CMBS crawlers, quantified crawler movement across various textures and colors of walking surfaces, and then linked these processes to simulate the potential distance individual crawlers could move. We found that ~50% of crawlers survived approximately three days, but that < 25% of crawlers survived up to seven days. Additionally, textures of walking surfaces affected the distance crawlers moved in a 15-minute period – which averaged ~18.8 cm – but color was negligible. Our simulations suggest that crawlers can move up to ~70 meters if they crawl for the entirety of their lives. These results help to demystify the movement of the immature stages of scale insects, which has implications for on-tree spread and crawler dispersal to uninfested hosts.