Area-wide pest management of Lygus hesperus

Yves Carrière¹, C Peter Ellsworth¹, Pierre Dutilleul², Christa Ellers-Kirk¹, Virginia Barkley¹, and Larry Antilla³

¹Department of Entomology, The University of Arizona, Tucson AZ, USA

²Department of Plant Science, McGill University, Macdonald Campus, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Québec, Canada and

³Arizona Cotton Research and Protection Council, Phoenix, AZ, USA

Correspondence: ycarrier@ag.arizona.edu

Understanding the effect of cropping patterns on population dynamics, dispersal, and habitat selection of insect pests has been an unresolved challenge. We studied the western tarnished plant bug, Lygus hesperus (Knight) (Heteroptera: Miridae), in cotton during early summer in central Arizona. We used a general approach based on Global Positioning System (GPS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies combined with spatial statistics, to assess the maximum distance at which forage and seed alfalfa, fallow fields with weeds, and cotton affect L. hesperus population density. Using a set of 50 cotton fields as focal fields, we found that forage and seed alfalfa as well as weeds acted as L. hesperus sources for these cotton fields. The source effect did not extend beyond 375, 500, and 1500 m for forage alfalfa, weeds, and seed alfalfa, respectively. Conversely, cotton fields acted as L. hesperus sinks, but this effect did not extend further than 750 m from the focal cotton fields. These findings suggest that specific spatial arrangements of these field types could reduce L. hesperus damage to cotton.

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