Passive light traps have long been a popular method used for trapping moths and other night-flying insects. Recent changes in the availability of equipment necessitate the development of accessible and effective alternatives for insect monitoring. This study assesses the performance of a 3D-printed Pennsylvania-style black light moth trap compared to the formerly available commercial BioQuip trap and investigates the impact of funnel size on catch rates. Our 3D-printed trap was compared to the BioQuip trap over ten trap-nights in Central Michigan. Results indicate that commercial BioQuip traps consistently captured significantly more moths than the 3D-printed prototype. An additional experiment evaluating the effect of funnel diameters on trap performance revealed that larger funnels generally caught a greater number of moths. While the commercial trap outperformed the initial 3D-printed design, likely due to differences in light source and funnel size, the 3D-printed trap offers a viable, cost-effective, and reproducible alternative. This technology enhances accessibility for citizen scientists, educational programs, and smaller research labs, promoting widespread moth monitoring crucial for addressing global insect declines. Future research should focus on optimizing LED light sources and trap geometry to further close the performance gap.
Ceutorhynchus constrictus Marsham is a seed-feeding weevil and potential biocontrol agent of the invasive plant garlic mustard, Alliaria petiolata (Bieb.) Cavara & Grande (Brassicaceae), in North America. Ceutorhynchus constrictus is native to Europe, has a single generation per year and eggs are laid into developing seeds within the seedpods of bolting garlic mustard plants. Females use their prolonged rostrum to bore holes through seedpods into the developing seed, deposit a single egg and then cover the opening with secretion. Larvae feed on ripening seeds and progress through three instars before exiting seedpods in late June, to pupate and overwinter in the soil. In Europe, C. constrictus development from egg to mature larva requires 30-to-40 days. At densities of up to three mating pairs of C. constrictus per garlic mustard inflorescence, there was no evidence of intraspecific competition among adult females or larvae. Up to 79% of seeds were destroyed on individual plants. When placed in the most conservative no-choice tests, C. constrictus has a physiological host range that includes two Brassica, one Boechera and one Braya species (all Brassicaceae). However, these plant species are not within the ecological host range of C. constrictus because they are not accepted as hosts in single-choice or open-field tests. Our results, and lack of field records on non-target plants in its native range, indicate that the ecological host range of C. constrictus is restricted to garlic mustard. We conclude that C. constrictus is a highly specialized herbivore that exclusively attacks field populations of garlic mustard.
Records for 45 centipede species occurring in Illinois are given with a brief discussion of general habitat features and the effects of certain environmental factors on specific distribution patterns. The chilopod fauna of Illinois includes species from southeastern, western, and northern physiographic regions and represents a richer mixture of chilopod species than is found in any adjacent state.
Over 7000 caddisfly specimens, representing 33 species in 10 families, were collected between sunset and sunrise on 12 nights: three nights each during early July and early August in both 2023 and 2024. Collections were made on the southwestern side of Drummond Island along the shoreline of Lake Huron. Sampling occurred for five minutes at 15-minute intervals from near sunset (21:00) to 01:00 and then once again at 03:00 and 05:00. Nocturnal flight periodicity was broadly similar between years and months, with mean caddisfly abundance and species richness peaking at about one hour after sunset. Mean species accumulation varied between months and years with 63–78% of all caddisfly species collected within one hour after sunset and 80–95% within two hours. Similarly, the time required to collect 100% of all caddisfly species during a single month varied from three hours in July 2023 to 7.5 hours in July 2024. Our results indicate that sampling caddisflies for the first two hours after sunset will collect most species present, but sampling during multiple months and years as well as throughout the night is likely needed to collect nearly all species present. Our data on the nocturnal flight periodicity of lentic caddisflies is fundamentally similar to that for lotic caddisflies from previously published studies.
The conservation of bees is crucial for maintaining the essential ecological services they provide. Understanding bee species' risk of extinction is a key part of conservation efforts, and can include assessment of dietary specialization, which has been linked to higher extinction risk. Dietary specialization in bees, called oligolecty, occurs when females select pollen only from closely related plants to feed their larvae. While the solitary bee, Megachile (Chelostomoides) campanulae (Robertson 1903), has been associated with flowers in the genus Campanula L. (Campanulaceae: Asterales), evidence from pollen analysis is limited, and dietary classification is reported inconsistently. This study examined dietary specialization of M. campanulae by inspecting pollen provisions from 16 nest cells in three urban neighborhoods in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota. Each provision contained more than 90% Campanula pollen. While limited to one urban area, these findings are consistent with the definition of oligolecty. This outcome suggests that to conserve M. campanulae, people must also conserve Campanula flowers. We recommend including native Campanula species in seed mixes, especially in areas where non-native Campanula is being removed.
Michigan Entomological Society Becomes the Great Lakes Entomological Society. An overview of the rational of the change and history of the society.
Alfalfa weevil, Hypera postica (Gyllenhal) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), is primarily a pest of alfalfa, but it has been reported feeding on other plants, including soybean. The relatively limited literature on H. postica in soybean indicates that adults and larvae can feed on soybean, but it is not suitable for larval development and survival. There have been instances of H. postica adults moving from alfalfa to nearby soybean fields where they have inflicted significant injury to the soybean plants. Here we report an instance of H. postica larvae causing severe feeding injury to soybean. This infestation of soybean was the result of a “green bridge” created by planting soybean into a field containing live alfalfa plants that were infested with H. postica larvae. After termination of the alfalfa in that field, H. postica larvae moved to and fed on soybean seedlings. The observations reported here provide evidence H. postica larvae can become pests of soybean intercropped (or relay planted) into alfalfa.
Sampling approaches are commonly adapted to reflect the study objectives in biodiversity monitoring projects. This approach optimizes findings to be locally relevant but comes at the cost of generalizability of findings. Here, we detail a comparison study directly examining how researchers’ choice of arthropod trap and level of specimen identification affects observations made in small-scale arthropod biodiversity studies. Four arthropod traps (pitfall traps, yellow ramp traps, yellow sticky cards, and novel jar ramp traps) were compared with respect to an array of biodiversity metrics calculated at two levels of identification. The arthropod community captured varied by trap type. Pitfalls and jar ramp traps performed similarly for most biodiversity metrics measured, suggesting that jar ramp traps provide a more comparable measurement of ground-dwelling arthropod communities to pitfall sampling than the yellow ramp traps. Identification to the lowest practical taxonomic unit enabled greater insights, including the mobility of arthropods captured in each trap type. This study illustrates the implications for biodiversity sampling of arthropods in environments with physical constraints on trapping, the tradeoffs that come with choices made in experimental design, and the importance of directly comparing adapted methods to established sampling protocol. Future biodiversity monitoring schemes should conduct comparison experiments to provide important information on performance and potential limitations of sampling methodology.
ABSTRACT: In Wisconsin, only one published species record exists for the omaliine rove beetle genus Eusphalerum. Two card-mounted specimens of Eusphalerum pothos were located in the research collection at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The collection event label provided no date but the Bayfield, Wisconsin location is consistent with an 1895 species list provided by Wickham. New state records are confirmed for two species: Eusphalerum carolinensis and Eusphalerum convexum. A single specimen of E. carolinensis was collected on Rubus sp. in Dane County on 27 May 2017, while a series of 10 E. convexum came from Prunus spp. in Monroe County between 30 May and 4 June 1997.
Although many insects are known to be associated with the floral canopies of oilseed pennycress (Thlaspi arvense), those that carry the crop’s pollen are unknown. During early spring of 2024 insects associated with pennycress flowers in Illinois and Minnesota were captured in sweep nets, frozen, sorted by species, and sonicated to remove pollen. Pollen grains were counted, and pollen loads per individual insect were calculated. Members of the orders Diptera, Hemiptera, and Hymenoptera accounted for 66%, 16%, and 14% of the 850 insects examined, but these same orders were responsible, respectively, for 18%, 3%, and 78% of the total pollen load of nearly a quarter of a million pollen grains. Insects carrying > 1000 pollen grains per adult included the bees Apis mellifera (Apidae), Andrena cressonii (Andrenidae), Halictus confusus, H. rubicundus, and Lasioglossum pruinosum (Halictidae); as well as the flies Dolichopus sp. (Dolichopodidae), Eristalis tenax and Eupeodes americanus (Syrphidae). Additionally, several insect species carried modest pollen loads (50-500 grains per individual), including parasitoids (e.g., Diadegma insulare, Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae), predators (e.g., Toxomerus marginatus, Diptera: Syrphidae), as well as crop pests (e.g., Delia platura, Diptera: Anthomyiidae). This suggests that the flowering canopy of pennycress is a diverse floral ecosystem with many potential insect pollinators and an array of associated ecological interactions.
Managers of northern hardwood forests in the Great Lakes region create gaps in the forest canopy of various sizes during harvesting to achieve different silvicultural objectives. Single-tree harvesting favors recruitment of shade-tolerant tree species by creating small gaps in the canopy, whereas group selection creates larger gaps that can favor shade-intolerant tree species. We evaluated changes in carabid beetle abundance and diversity in harvest-created gaps of five sizes (gap diameters of 6, 10, 20, 30, and 46 m) and uncut forests in northern Wisconsin where sugar maple (Acer saccharum) was the dominant tree species. Gaps were cut during the fall/winter of 1994 and 1995. Pitfall traps were used to sample carabids during the summers of 1994 (pre-harvesting) and 1997 (2nd or 3rd summer post-harvesting). Overall, 27,111 carabids (60 species) were collected in both years, with 15,036 (25 species) collected in 1994 and 12,075 (55 species) collected in 1997. Carabid species richness increased while catch rate decreased with increasing gap size. Similarly, as gap size increased, carabid abundance declined for forest specialists but increased for open-habitat species. The carabid assemblages in the 6- and 10-m-diameter gaps were most like the intact forest, while those in the 30- and 46-m-diameter gaps were most distinct. Results are discussed in terms of harvesting strategies in northern hardwood forests to maintain high biodiversity.
Bombus affinis (rusty-patched bumble bee) Cresson is listed as a federally endangered species in the United States and Canada. It is globally “imperiled” (G2) and listed as “critically endangered” on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. While the causes of the species’ precipitous decline are relatively unknown, researchers suspect introduced pathogens, habitat loss and degradation, competition with non-native bees, and climate change. Conservation strategies should encompass all aspects of the species’ life cycle. However, habitat selection of new overwintering gynes (gynes become queens when they establish nests in the spring) is the least understood. Here we document the first observation of an overwintering B. affinis gyne in an urban deciduous forest in Madison, Wisconsin. The gyne was discovered on a slight north, northeast facing slope within the top 5 cm of loose soil and under a layer of Acer saccharum, Quercus sp., and Tsuga canadensis leaf litter. We mapped the landcovers within 1 km and 2 km around the observed overwintering location as the potential foraging range that a newly emerged queen would encounter the following spring. While only a single observation, this chance encounter adds to the knowledge of overwintering habitat requirements and increases our understanding of the land cover types that B. affinis queens might encounter within the foraging range of the overwintering site, especially those within a highly urbanized landscape. Observations such as this can inform conservation and recovery efforts for the imperiled B. affinis.
Book Review for Hoebeke, E. Richard, James R. LaBonte, and Kent E. Loeffler. 2024. Adventive weevils recorded from North America: A review and illustrated manual for their identification (Coleoptera: Curculionoidea, excluding Scolytinae). The Coleopterists Society Special Publication 5: 1-603, 226 color plates.
A single nymph of over 2000 specimens of Taeniopteryx nivalis collected in 1968 from Gull Creek, Kalamazoo County, Michigan (T25:R9W:S6), had a double flagellum on the left antenna (Fig. 1). The more laterally placed flagellum was perfectly formed and of normal length, whereas the inner one was less than half the normal length but appeared normally structured. The flagella shared a common pedicel.
The striped cucumber beetle, Acalymma vittata (Fabricius) and the western corn rootworm, Diahrotica virgifera LeConte, are of economic importance and utilize cucurbits, but to a different extent. A. vittata is a specialist on cucurbits during all stages of its life cycle, whereas D. virgifera feeds on cucurbits only as an adult. Much is known about the life history, feeding preferences, and control of each of these species (A. vittata: Gould, 1944, 1962; Harcourt and Cass, 1955; Wiseman, Hall, and Painter, 1962; D. virgifera: Chiang, 1973; Ludwig, 1975). However, no study has looked at possible interactions such as competition between the two species when they utilize the same host plants as adults and whether such interactions might influence their distribution and subsequent damage to various cucurbits.
[Excerpt] Many species of Lepturinae are noted for their great variation in color, while some are quite uniform in coloration. Strangalia bicolor (Swederus) is one of the Iatter type and usually shows virtually no variation. The elytra are uniformly blue-black with the exception of the inflexed corner of the humerus which is reddish-yellow. The wings and eyes are black, and the rest of the beetle is entirely reddish-yellow. Until recently, the only variation I had observed was one female with a small, triangular, reddish-yellow spot on the basal margin of each elytron near the scutellum. Linsley and Chemsak (1977) recorded a female with "the elytra darkened only along the lateral margins."
[Excerpt] For many years this author has been actively collecting Michigan Lepidoptera and generally observing insects in the field. Almost every season some predation of Lepidoptera by insects and their allies is seen. Unfortunately, many early observations went unrecorded in my field notebooks, but since the late 1950's I have made notations of these interesting encounters.
Little has been published concerning the influence of moisture on development of the redheaded pine sawfly [Neodiprion leconfei (Fitch)] . The effects of relative humidity (RH) on development within the cocoon and adult emergence have not been systematically investigated. Brown and Daviault (1942) noted greater survival by cocoons subjected to 4045% RH than others at 90-9576. Deneve (1968) concluded that RH had little effect on emergence of adults. His study was made with small unreplicated samples and should probably be regarded as inconclusive. The purpose of this laboratory study was to determine whether constant humidity, at various levels, affects emergence from cocoons by male lecontei adults.
[excerpt] The intent of this paper is to record the dragonfly Boyeria grafiana Williamson as a resident Ohio species. The previous Ohio record for grafiana was based on a single male taken by E. E. Bogue at Orwell, Ashtabula County, Ohio, in September, 1894, and listed by Kellicott (1899) as Boyeria vinosa (Say). Hine (1913) updated some of Kellicott's work and identified the Orwell record as Boyeria grafiana, which had been described by Williamson in 1907.
[Excerpt] The dunes along the shores of Lake Huron in the vicinity of Ipperwash Provincial Park, Port Franks, and Pinery Provincial Park, Ontario, are notable for their unusual vegetation and a number of interesting plants and animals. During studies of the peculiar, disjunctive populations of the dwarf hackberry tree (Celtis tenuifolia Nutt.) (Wagner, 1974), I became aware that the local population of marbled white, Euchloe olympia (Edwards), differed in a number of respects from the usual form with which I was familiar. Preliminary observations during the spring of 1975 suggested that the butterflies might even represent a distinct subspecies, so numerous were the differences. Later observations on collections made by Mogens C. Nielsen in the sand dunes of Berrien County, Michigan, along Lake Michigan, show similar differences from the usual form of olyrnpia in the Great Lakes region.
