What is it about?
The rice stem stink bug Tibraca limbativentris is a major pest in rice paddies of the Neotropics. In Argentina, its populations overwinter in twelve host‐plant species that occur inside rice fields. However, it's unknown whether these plants are chosen at random from all the vegetation present, or whether there are factors that influence the selection of winter host plants. In this work, we analyzed some factors that we hypothesized could be influencing the selection of plants by this stink bug, obtaining interesting results. Our results show that plant composition differed at the local scale, with significant differences in stink bug abundance between winter hosts in each site. A positive correlation was obtained between the height of the different rice cultivars used during spring–summer in target sites and the height of the hosts selected by T. limbativentris near to these plots during winter. This shows that the height of the rice cultivar could be a factor related to the local selection of winter hosts by T. limbativentris.
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Why is it important?
These results serve as a framework for future research, contributing to integrated pest management for this pest in target sites.
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Relevance of local scale factors in winter host‐plant selection by the rice pest
Tibraca limbativentris
(Hemiptera: Pentatomidae), Journal of Applied Entomology, February 2020, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/jen.12741.
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