Estimating Monitoring Trap Plume Reach and Trapping Area for Nymphal and Adult Halyomorpha halys (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) in Crop and Non-crop Habitats

Halyomorpha halys (Stål) (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae), the brown marmorated stink bug, is an invasive polyphagous insect that can cause serious economic injury to specialty and row crops in the United States and globally. To date, H. halys has been managed with repeated insecticide applications. While progress has been made toward development of trap-based monitoring tools to guide management decisions, little is known regarding the trapping area over which a single pheromone-baited trap captures H. halys. We conducted single trap, multiple distance mark-release-recapture experiments; results were used to estimate trapping area for nymphs and adults in sites without host plants present (open field) and for adults in sites with host plants present (apple orchard). Plume reach for pheromone-baited sticky traps was consistently estimated to be <3 m. Maximum dispersive distance in an open field devoid of host plants was estimated to be 40 m for nymphs and 120–130 m for adults resulting in trapping areas of 0.58 ha and 4.83–5.56 ha, respectively. When traps were deployed in association with host plants within the border row of an apple orchard, adult maximum dispersive distance and trapping area was reduced to 70 m and 1.67 ha, respectively. These results indicate that the behavioral response of H. halys to pheromonal stimuli is influenced by the presence of host plants and that trapping area for pheromone-baited traps will likely change relative to the cropping system in which it is deployed. Caution should be taken when extrapolating these results, because the measured values may differ in other crop systems.