Insects (2020) 11 (9 - 549)

Christopher Adams, Jeffrey Schenker, Paul Weston, Lawrence Gut and James Miller (2020)
Path meander of male codling moths (Cydia pomonella) foraging for sex pheromone plumes: Field validation of a novel method for quantifying path meander of random movers developed using computer simulations
Insects 11 (9 - 549)
Abstract: Measures of insect movement patterns are key to understanding how insects forage for resources and mating opportunities in their environment. Directly observing large numbers of these small organisms can be extremely challenging, especially for flying insects in low light conditions such as codling moth (Cydia pomonella), a key pest of apple. Here we provide a novel approach to indirectly measure the path meander of randomly moving organisms. Computer simulations were used to simulate insect movement across a wide range of possible movement patterns, measured in circular standard deviation (c.s.d.) of turn angles between track segments. For each c.s.d., the pattern of catch across a rectangular grid of traps was plotted and the resulting exponential decay constant (k) of the fitted lines were used to generate a standard curve describing this linear relationship. Using this standard curve, field data from target organisms caught in the described trapping grid can reveal the pattern of movement employed by these movers. Here we have demonstrated methodology for indirect measure of the movement patterns employed by random walkers such as C. pomonella. While we employed codling moth as our model system, we suggest this approach could prove useful in a wide range of other systems.
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Database assignments for author(s): James R. Miller

Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
pheromones/attractants/traps

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Pest and/or beneficial records:

Beneficial	Pest/Disease/Weed	Crop/Product	Country	Quarant.
	Cydia pomonella	Apple (Malus)	U.S.A. (NE)