Journal of Applied Entomology最新文献

Spondias species are increasingly valued for their fruit production, which relies heavily on insect pollination. The flowers of these species are generalised, attracting a diverse array of insect visitors, including bees, beetles, flies, wasps and butterflies. This study provides the first comprehensive analysis of floral scents emitted by three Spondias crop species—Spondias mombin (cajá), S. purpurea (siriguela) and S. tuberosa (umbu) and explores the potential relationships between floral cues and pollinator spectra. We examine the spectrum of floral visitors across these species from both literature and original field observations. Our results reveal significant interspecific differences in both the number and quantity of volatile compounds released, as well as in the relative composition of these scents. Cajá flowers were dominated by (E)-β-ocimene, α- and β-pinene, methyl benzoate and benzyl alcohol, whereas siriguela flowers primarily emitted (E)-β-caryophyllene, (E)-4,8-dimethyl-1,3,7-nonatriene, α-pinene, hexyl butyrate, methoxybenzene and 4-methylanisol. Umbu flowers predominantly emitted linalool and its derivatives, and (Z)-3-hexenyl butyrate. The floral visitor composition varied between species. Bees, particularly from the Meliponini tribe, were the main visitors of cajá (70%), whereas siriguela attracted primarily wasps (80%), especially from the Epiponini tribe. Umbu flowers attracted in similar proportions both wasps (38%) and bees (32%). These findings highlight the importance of a broad range of insect pollinators in Spondias species, particularly the role of non-bee pollinators like social wasps in the pollination of siriguela and umbu. We propose that variations in floral scent profiles and visual cues among these species are key factors in shaping their specific pollinator communities. This underscores the critical role of diverse insect pollinators in maintaining ecosystem services, reinforcing the need to preserve and support their populations.

Wang, Y., Wei Z.-H., Gao P., Li Y.-T., LV Y.-T. and Yang X.-Q. 2025. “Reconstruction and Prediction of Invasive Cydia pomonella Population Dynamics: A Laboratory Study.” J Appl Entomol, 149: 157–164. https://doi.org/10.1111/jen.13368.

In the paper by Wang et al. (2025), there was an error in the Materials and Methods section 2.2. The first sentence read “Healthy adult C. pomonella were carefully selected during the initial stage of eclosion” but this should have read “Healthy adult C. pomonella were segregated and then randomly selected during the initial stage of eclosion.”

Table 1 also contained errors due to an incorrect analysis. The correct table is shown below.

We apologize for these errors.

TABLE 1Three successive generations of coding moth reproduction data under different treatment conditions.

Note: The data included the number of eggs, larvae, pupae, and female and male adults per generation. Data is mean ± SEM.

Pollinator insects are essential for the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems and play a critical role in ensuring food security; thus, studies on this topic provide significant benefits for human society. Pollination involves diverse taxa that can vary depending on the specific environment. Nevertheless, it is not always possible to monitor and study all pollinators of an ecosystem, as the research context is often constrained by financial and personnel limitations. European and national directives mostly focus on the monitoring of three taxa: bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Anthophila), hoverflies (Diptera: Syrphidae) and lepidopterans (Lepidoptera). However, an effective prioritisation of taxa for pollinator research should consider their actual role as pollinators, which can vary according to the considered ecosystem. Moreover, knowledge about the specific potential of different taxa as pollinators in different ecosystems is still limited. Here, we evaluated, in mountain environments in the European Alps, the potential as pollinators of the three aforementioned taxa together with three other occurring flower-visiting taxa: beetles (Coleoptera), muscid flies (Diptera: Muscidae) and ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). We compared them in terms of flower visitor abundance and actual pollen transport. In addition, we evaluated whether the scientific efforts made thus far by European researchers aligned with the actual potential of the different taxa as pollinators in a mountain context. Bees and hoverflies have been found to be both the most effective pollen carriers and the most studied pollinators. Instead, a clear discrepancy is observed for muscid flies and lepidopterans, with the former being underrepresented in the scientific literature compared to their actual potential as pollinators, while the latter are overrepresented, ranking as the second most studied taxon despite being the least abundant visitors and contributing negligibly to pollen transport. Our purpose is not to generalise our findings, but to highlight the relevant discrepancies that may exist between the actual role of pollinators in specific ecosystems and the research efforts directed towards them.

Spiders are dominant predators in terrestrial ecosystems, regulating invertebrate biomass, diversity and abundance through predation. However, analysing predation patterns in the field is challenging, especially as spiders are extra-intestinal liquid feeders and often active at night. Gut content metabarcoding (GCM) provides a cost-effective method to study the prey composition of spiders. In this study, we determine the minimum sample size of spider specimens required to obtain representative estimates of local prey composition. Six common spider species were studied using GCM, and we show that the number of analysed individuals per spider species influenced the sampling completeness for prey at different taxonomic levels. To achieve 90% sampling completeness at the prey species level, between 50 and over 150 individuals per spider species had to be analysed, which is challenging for ecological multi-site studies. Hence, we argue for consideration of coarser taxonomic levels, such as family or order, which often provide sufficient ecological information to understand predator–prey interactions. At these levels, sampling completeness can be achieved with much smaller sample sizes of four to eight individuals per species, making ecological GCM studies more cost-effective. These results highlight the benefits of considering the taxonomic resolution in metabarcoding studies to address ecological research questions. We further provide information that will facilitate future investigations of predator–prey dynamics, not just in spiders but also in other extra-intestinal liquid feeders like, for example, ground beetles.

Most temperate insects survive winter by entering a period of dormancy called diapause. Some of the greatest climate change impacts are likely to occur during this period, as entire populations of some species are represented by a relatively small number of hibernating individuals. Bumblebee populations are particularly vulnerable because only queens overwinter and any decline in the winter survival of queens, or reduced post-diapause fitness, could have significant consequences on population dynamics the following spring. This study investigated the impact of different overwintering conditions on Bombus terrestris queens across an altitudinal gradient in the German Alps. Snow pack coverage was manipulated to simulate advanced snow melt and delayed snow melt, and maintained for current/control conditions. We found that changes in snow pack and altitude affect the level and variability of soil temperature across the winter season but that these have no effect on hibernation survival (very high in all cases) or subsequent colony establishment (very low in all cases). However, queen weight loss during diapause did differ across altitudes, with bumblebees hibernating at lower levels and being exposed to higher and more widely fluctuating temperatures, losing significantly more weight. Our results therefore confirm the potential for negative physiological impacts of exposure to higher and more variable winter temperatures during diapause, as is increasingly common under climate change. But we also find that bumblebees have some resilience to these effects, at least in terms of hibernation survival, within the range experienced in our experiments. We conclude that further field studies targeted at the range of conditions likely to be experienced by European insects over winter are necessary to anticipate potential population impacts, but that existing levels of climate change are likely sufficient to affect many of these insects, even if at sub-lethal levels.