Abstract
The brown marmorated stink bug, Halyomorpha halys, is an invasive pest species, first detected in Italy in 2012. Only 2 years after this first detection, increasing damage was reported in fruit orchards in the Emilia Romagna region, the first invaded area, which is one of the most important regions for the Italian and European fruit production. In the present study, life table parameters of H. halys populations were investigated in Italy under typical temperate/Mediterranean climate conditions representative of southern Europe. Our findings indicate that in Italy H. halys has two generations/year and very high reproductive rates for both generations (R 0 = 24.04 and 5.44 for the overwintering and summer generation, respectively). The huge growth rates explain why in 2015 a massive outbreak of H. halys was observed in Italy, and these rates confirm that the pest is a threat for agricultural production in southern Europe. The parameters obtained in this study are essential for the development and optimization of sustainable management strategies.
Highlights
The time elapsed between the exit from overwintering and the first egg laying was on average 35.8 ± 4.29 September Mean (SE) days, whereas in the summer generation the time elapsed from adult emergence and the first oviposition was on average only 12.31 ± 0.89 SE days
The present life table study was performed in Emilia Romagna, a region located in the Po River Valley of northern Italy, and the findings are strikingly different from earlier studies conducted in Switzerland (Haye et al 2014), just 400 km north of the study area
Compared to the strictly univoltine populations in northern Switzerland, our study indicates that south of the Alps brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) has two generations/year, as observed in the Beijing Province in China (Zhang et al 1993) and in the southern United States, e.g. Virginia and West Virginia (Leskey et al 2012c; Bakken et al 2015)
Summary
Among the invasive insect species, the brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB), Halyomorpha halys (Stal, 1855) (Heteroptera, Pentatomidae), is among the most threatening pests for many agricultural crops. It has a highly invasive behaviour, a rapidly expanding range throughout the world (Zhu et al 2016) and an elevated damaging potential because of its extremely wide host range that includes a variety of fruit, vegetable and row crops, as well as ornamental and non-crop plants (Leskey et al 2012a; Lee et al 2013; Rice et al 2014; Bakken et al 2015; Bergmann et al 2016).
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