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Diversity, spatial distribution, and sampling for ant management decision‐making in integrated pest management programs in citrus groves
Author(s) -
MartínezFerrer María Teresa,
CamposRivela José Miguel
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
entomologia experimentalis et applicata
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.765
H-Index - 83
eISSN - 1570-7458
pISSN - 0013-8703
DOI - 10.1111/eea.12535
Subject(s) - biology , integrated pest management , pest analysis , sampling (signal processing) , ecology , spatial distribution , diversity (politics) , distribution (mathematics) , pest control , agroforestry , botany , statistics , computer science , mathematics , sociology , mathematical analysis , filter (signal processing) , anthropology , computer vision
Ants play important ecological roles, such as predation on other arthropods, seed dispersal, and soil structure maintenance. In citrus agroecosystems, ants are considered a secondary pest. The damage they cause is indirect through the disruption of the biological control of pests, especially honeydew producers. In integrated pest management programs, adequate and precise sampling methods are required to accurately determine the need for chemical ant control to minimize the economic and environmental costs of unnecessary chemical treatments and to reduce the risk of crop loss by pests. In Mediterranean citrus groves, eight ant species that differed in abundance and frequency have been found foraging on citrus trees: L asius grandis F orel, P heidole pallidula ( N ylander), P lagiolepis pygmaea ( L atreille), F ormica gerardi B ondroit, F ormica rufibarbis F abricius, C amponotus sylvaticus ( O livier), L inepithema humile ( M ayr), and T apinoma erraticum ( L atreille) (all H ymenoptera: F ormicidae). The trunk was selected as the most efficient sampling unit to establish the monitoring method. Aggregation indices on the trunk of these species were calculated, and enumerative and binomial sampling methods were developed for the most frequent species, L . grandis and P h. pallidula . Ant species differed in spatial distributions within citrus orchards, and required different sample sizes to estimate population abundance. The minimum sample size required, taking into account the maximum average abundance found – 44.1 L . humile , 17.3 L . grandis , and 3.5 P h. pallidula per trunk per min –, would be 28, 25, and 54 trees, respectively.