Recent advances in wireworm research:new approaches raise new questions

摘要

For the last 60 years wireworms (larvae of Agriotes lineatus, A. obscurus and A. sputator) have been considered a single pest complex. Synthetic sex pheromones are available for these species and we have used them as an ecological research tool. There are marked differences in adult male spatial distributions and behaviours that are more pronounced at smaller spatial scales, and show significant interspecific biological variability. Furthermore, each species responds to different environmental factors and the only evidence we have of potential linkages between adult and larval distributions is for A. obscurus. We have developed a terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) technique that allows larval identification. To date we have only detected two out of three species as wireworms in English farmland. It is concluded that we should no longer treat Agriotes spp. collectively, and that there is potential for further developing pheromone trapping as a monitoring tool.