Evaluation of trap designs and food attractants for trapping Eucryptorrhynchus scrobiculatus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)^*

* The research was conducted in Beijing Key Laboratory for Forest Pest Control and the Forestry Bureau in Lingwu city.

ABSTRACT

Eucryptorrhynchus scrobiculatus (Motschulsky) is a serious pest of tree of heaven, Ailanthus altissima (Mill.) Swingle in China. Laboratory choice tests were conducted to compare attractiveness of vinegar, ethanol, apple juice, the vinegar-ethanol mixture (VE), vinegar-apple mixture (VA), ethanol-apple mixture (EA) and vinegar-ethanol-apple mixture (VEA) to E. scrobiculatus. VEA showed significantly higher attractiveness to E. scrobiculatus than vinegar, ethanol, apple juice alone, VE, VA or EA. The field experiments were conducted to evaluate the efficiency of commercial pitfall traps baited with different ratios of VEA (Apple: VE, m:m) for trapping E. scrobiculatus. Field evaluations showed that the number of marked and wild E. scrobiculatus in traps baited with the VEA (Apple: VE, 30:70 ratio, m:m) was significantly higher than traps baited with other ratios of VEA. Further testing of four types of trap baited with this VEA (Apple: VE, 30:70 ratio, m:m) indicated that captures in homemade pitfall trap design were significantly higher than in any other trap design (commercial pitfall traps, cross-vane versus traps and six-unit-funnel traps). The results demonstrated that homemade pitfall traps baited with the VEA (Apple: VE, 30:70 ratio, m:m) have potential for E. scrobiculatus monitoring.

KEYWORDS:

• Eucryptorrhynchus scrobiculatus
• tree borer
• trap type
• trapping system

Acknowledgements

We thank the Forestry Bureau in Lingwu city and Jiaozishan Forest Farm in Zhongning city for assistance with field work. We also thank Ren Yuan, Yang Zhoubin, Liu Zhenkai, Gao Peng and Gao Qi (Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China) for their help.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Xiao-Jian Wen http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4053-8852

Gan-Yu Zhang http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2240-9769

Jun-Bao Wen http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8391-8850

Notes

* The research was conducted in Beijing Key Laboratory for Forest Pest Control and the Forestry Bureau in Lingwu city.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant number: 31770691), Beijing's Science and Technology Planning Project (Grant number: 31770691) and Special Fund for Forestry Scientific Research in the Public Interest under Grant 201304412.