PHEROMONE BLEND ATTRACTS NUN MOTH, LYMANTRIA MONACHA (LEPIDOPTERA: LYMANTRIIDAE), IN JAPAN

Abstract

The nun moth (NM), Lymantria monacha (L.), is one of the most important defoliators of coniferous forests in Eurasia (Bejer 1988). It was reportedly established near Brooklyn, New York (Holland 1941), but according to Ferguson (1978) “either the report was wrong or monacha did not persist, as there is no evidence of its presence now.” The potential entry of NM to North America poses a severe threat to the vitality, biodiversity, and stability of coniferous forests. The economic and environmental costs of existing exotics and the potential entry of new ones, such as NM, justify proactive management and heightened international quarantine efforts.Recent identification of an attractive and species-specific pheromone blend in NM from the Czech Republic (Grant et al. 1996; Gries et al. 1996) provides the opportunity to develop pheromone-based NM detection surveys in North America. However, as has been demonstrated for other moth species (Klun et al. 1975; Thompson et al. 1991; Tóth et al. 1992), pheromone blends of geographically wide ranging species, such as NM, may be regionally specific. Therefore, attraction of Asian NM males to the European NM pheromone blend needed to be tested.