Cereal Leaf Beetle, Oulema melanopus (L.) (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), Responses to Time in Cold Storage 1

Abstract

Days in storage at 5°C significantly affected subsequent behaviors and mortality at 27°C of virgin female cereal leaf beetles, Oulema melanopus (L.). As storage time increased from 7 to 235 days, there was a corresponding decrease in: 1) days to death, feeding, oviposition or inactivity after feeding; 2) feeding days to oviposition; and 3) females not feeding or that became inactive after feeding. Feeding days to inactivity and percent females that oviposited or died increased. Prediapause (0 storage time) females displayed the same types of behaviors, but for different physiological reasons. Therefore, their percentages and times usually differed substantially from extrapolations of post-storage behavioral equations at 0 storage days.