Bees, primarily including Lasioglossum spp. (sweat bees), Bombus spp. (bumble bees), and Apis mellifera (honey bees), have been recently reported to forage on centipedegrass spikes. However, the specific interactions between these different bee groups and the spikes during foraging have not been fully understood. This information is critical for optimizing pollination services and guiding conservation efforts of bees in manage...

Scale insects are prevalent urban landscape pests and are considered to move between neighboring trees via wind-aided and phoretic dispersal by cryptic, short-lived crawlers. Crawling likely plays a central role in these dispersal processes by shaping their ability to move onto phoretic hosts or to locate host plants and/or settling locations after being blown off a tree. Additionally, walking capabilities of crawlers drive on...

Dispersal is an important behavior in many animals, with profound effects on individual fitness and the evolutionary trajectories of populations. This is especially true within taxa with particular life-history strategies, for example those that exploit ephemeral habitat. Further, dispersal is commonly seen to be part of behavioral syndromes - suites of traits that covary across behavioral contexts. The red flour beetle, Tribo...

Tactics that manipulate insect behavior are a component of many pest management strategies. Pheromone-based mating disruption is one such tactic widely used in agricultural systems, but few studies have assessed disrupting other mate communication mechanisms, such as acoustic signals. The most destructive pear pest in the Pacific Northwest USA, pear psylla ( Cacopsylla pyricola ) is believed to use acoustic signals to find mat...

The Avian Vampire Fly, Philornis downsi , has invaded the Galapagos Islands, where it causes high mortality of endemic and native landbird species, including most species of Darwin’s finches. Control methods are under development, but key information is missing about the reproductive biology of P. downsi and the behavior of flies in and near nests of their hosts. We used external and internal nest cameras to record the behavio...