Visual stimuli displayed on traps enhance attraction of longhorn beetles

Abstract

Longhorn beetles (Coleoptera; Cerambycidae) are one of the largest, most diverse, ecologically, and economically important family of beetles in the world. Several longhorn beetles display color patterns on their elytra that have likely evolved as a mechanism to gain protection from natural enemies and which might also be used as visual cues for intraspecific communication. In such cases, copying visual features that are important for mate finding on trapping devices used for monitoring native and non-native species might potentially increase trap efficacy. To test this hypothesis, we carried out four trapping trials in Europe and Canada targeting four longhorn beetle species. In each trapping trial, we compared the efficacy of plain black intercept-panel traps with panel traps displaying visual stimuli mimicking the elytral patterns of the targeted species. As a secondary objective, we also tested the effect of the species-specific visual patterns on non-target longhorn beetle species caught in traps. The presence of visual stimuli on traps enhanced attraction of Neoclytus acuminatus (Fabricius) and Xylotrechus antilope (Schönherr) but not Xylotrechus stebbingi Gahan. Not enough individuals of Sarosesthes fulminans (Fabricius) were caught to run an analysis. Responses of non-target longhorn beetle species to the tested stimuli also indicated that flower-visiting species were generally attracted by traps with plain light-colored panels recalling flower colors and that non-target non-flower visitors were attracted by different visual stimuli depending on the species. Our study showed that the integration of visual stimuli on traps can improve their efficacy toward longhorn beetles, aiding monitoring and survey programs for native and non-native species.

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