English

Abstract

The saw-toothed grain beetle, Oryzaephilus surinamensis (Linnaeus) is a secondary pest of rice grains and other stored products. Lack of information on the population abundance, spatial, and temporal distribution of O. surinamensis rendered the management control strategy of this pest species less effective. The objective of this study was to investigate the abundance, spatial and temporal pattern of O. surinamensis populations from nine rice warehouses in three zones of Peninsular Malaysia (i.e., the northern, central and southern zones) for three continuous months. The results showed that the abundance of O. surinamensis populations varied significantly (p<0.05, p= 0.00) between zones, with the highest abundance for this species (69%) recorded from the Klang District, in the central zone, followed by Pasir Gudang (27%) in the southern zone, and Seberang Prai (4%) in the northern zone. The patterns of population abundance also showed significant differences between months, p<0.05 (p-value= 0.00-0.011) between all the warehouses. The factors that could be associated with the highest abundance of the pest were attributed to poor sanitation at the warehouses and inconsistency in the fumigation regime. For the spatial distribution analysis, SADIEShell_122 and Surfer8 software were applied. The distribution patterns of O. surinamensis populations varied significantly in all the warehouses, being significantly aggregated at p<0.05 (p=0.0385-0.0513) and Ia>1.0 (1.212-1.579), whilst being non-significantly and randomly distributed at p>0.05 (p=0.1154-0.91032) and Ia>1.0 (0.852- 0.929). The significance of the aggregation might be due to the rapidly changing volume of the rice stock caused by the active and rapid turnover of the storage inventory. The results obtained were very valuable and informative in managing O. surinamensis infestation of stored rice by incorporating the spatial and temporal information of the pest populations in the management strategy for improving the rice and other stored products.