ABSTRACT Pupation is a critical developmental stage for Hermetia illucens L. (Diptera: Stratiomyidae) (black soldier fly, BSF) in mass‐rearing systems, directly influencing adult emergence and reproductive output. This study evaluated six substrate types (sand, wood shavings, topsoil, vermiculite, spent larval substrate, and potting soil) to assess the effects of moisture level and compaction on pupation success, adult emergence, and mortality. Substrate performance varied according to physical properties, including dry matter content, bulk density, and water‐holding capacity. Moist substrates consistently outperformed dry ones, with optimal pupation observed at 10% moisture. Although adult emergence was highest at 40% moisture, elevated moisture levels increased the risk of mold formation in some substrates. In general, 10% moisture achieved not only high percentages of pupation and adults but also reduced mortality while avoiding the risk of mold growth. Mild compaction had no adverse effects on larval development or emergence, suggesting that moderately compacted substrates could be reused to enhance cost efficiency in production systems. Among all tested materials, spent larval substrate emerged as the most practical and economical option due to its availability and effectiveness.

ABSTRACT Phenotypic plasticity, the capacity of organisms to adjust to varying environments, could play various roles in the evolution of phenotype development. Host shift in phytophagous insects is a perfect setting for studying the interplay between plasticity of life history traits and the evolution of life history strategies on novel plant hosts. Utilizing the benefits of a long‐term laboratory evolution experiment, we used populations of seed beetle [ Acanthoscelides obtectus Say (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae)] reared on three plant hosts [common bean ( Phaseolus vulgaris L.), chickpea ( Cicer arietinum L.) and mung bean ( Vigna radiata (L.) R Wilczek), all Fabaceae] for more than 150 generations. Reciprocal transplant experiments on inbred lines derived from these populations enabled the assessment of both long‐term changes in beetles' life history strategies and the alterations in their plastic capacity to adjust on diverse hosts. Our results demonstrate that seed beetle populations evolved distinct life history strategies, as well as different environmental sensitivity of life history traits. Beetles evolved on common beans showed stable pre‐adult development within seeds of all three plant hosts but high variation in their reproductive output. On the other hand, populations adapted to chickpeas became specialized for development on chickpeas and constantly allocated more resources to reproduction. Populations evolved on mung beans were associated with high plasticity and variance in both larval survival and fecundity on all plant hosts, indicating the ongoing process of adaptation. This work is discussed in the context of how phenotypic plasticity induced by host shift can shape life history strategies, providing insights into the evolutionary and ecological dynamics of adaptation.

ABSTRACT Parasitoid wasps can parasitize many hosts in their lifetimes, but their level of parasitism varies with age. Therefore, it is particularly important to understand the fitness of parasitoids at different times in their life. We clarified the reproductive strategy of Cotesia chilonis (Munakata) (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) by studying the relationship between parasitic ability and factors, such as the upper longevity limit and events of exposure to hosts. Furthermore, we also studied the effects of the number of host exposures on the parasitic characteristics of offspring. We found that when host numbers were unlimited, the longevity of C. chilonis was significantly reduced compared to when parasitoids were not exposed to hosts. Besides, C. chilonis could survive and complete parasitization over six events of exposure to hosts (lasting up to 12 h each) over their lifetimes, and that the parasitization rate was higher in the first four events of exposures to hosts ranging from 77.5% to 92.5%. The body size of the female offspring (F 1 ) of parasitoids (P 1 ) with different bouts of parasitism varied and was positively correlated with the number of offspring in the following generation (F 2 ). Overall, the period within 12–24 h after eclosion of C. chilonis adults is most suitable for its mass rearing. For this age group, offspring had the highest quality indicators, including high fecundity, a high proportion of females in their progeny, and long lifespans. This study provides information on the reproductive pattern of C. chilonis useful for optimizing large‐scale breeding of this parasitoid.

ABSTRACT Woolly apple aphid, Eriosoma lanigerum (Hausmann), is a damaging pest of apple ( Malus domestica F.) found in most regions of the world where apples grow. The control of this aphid is becoming increasingly difficult due to changes in pesticide approval in orchards. Forficula auricularia L. is a main predator of E. lanigerum , but the numbers of earwigs in trees are inconsistent and unreliable for the control of the pest. This project aimed to test whether annual additions of earwigs in refugia in the tree canopy would reduce E. lanigerum infestations. In each of three commercial apple orchards with a history of E. lanigerum , we introduced, in the spring of each year, commercial predator refuges containing five earwigs to each tree in six plots (nine trees each) per orchard. The E. lanigerum colonies per plot, aphids per colony and infested leaf nodes were compared with adjacent plots with no added earwigs or refuges. We also assessed the numbers of earwigs in refuges at the end of the growing season. Although in one of the three orchards there was an indication that earwigs placed in refuges in the canopy of apple trees reduced the number of aphid colonies on shoots, this was not statistically significant overall. There were high levels of variation in the numbers of both E. lanigerum and F. auricularia across the three orchards and between years. In general, there were fewer E. lanigerum where there were greater numbers of F. auricularia in trees, but the ability of earwigs to control E. lanigerum following 2 years of introductions was not sufficient alone. Forficula auricularia 's contribution to the control of other important orchard pests must not be overlooked. Future research should include identifying the causes of the low and inconsistent earwig numbers in apple orchards.

ABSTRACT The impacts of land‐use change on biodiversity may be studied through different approaches and biological scales, being abundance and morphological traits two trustworthy variables that can depict a cause‐and‐consequence scenario of environmental transformations at the population scale. In the tropics, native non‐forested ecosystems structure complex ecological communities, with species presenting complex responses toward environmental shifts. We investigated the effects of land‐use change on the abundance and morphological traits of dung beetle species in one of the major Neotropical wetlands, the Brazilian Pantanal. To achieve this, we sampled individuals of two widely distributed South American dung beetle species, Dichotomius bos and Dichotomius nisus , across native grasslands, exotic pastures, and soybean fields. We measured individuals' body mass, pronotum length/width ratio, relative protibial size, elytra length/width ratio, and size of pronotum relative to abdomen size—which are directly linked to ecosystem functions provided by dung beetles. Exotic pastures and soybean croplands had a higher abundance of dung beetles than native grasslands. Furthermore, soybean croplands had individuals with a lower pronotum length/width ratio than in native grasslands and exotic pastures for both species studied. Morphological traits in D. nisus were more strongly influenced by land‐use change than those in D. bos , indicating that even closely related species may respond differently to habitat alterations due to different ecological adaptations. Finally, these findings highlight that morphological traits are sensitive to land‐use changes in non‐forested ecosystems and could be important to complement the information obtained from studies that used community metrics.

ABSTRACT Managing beetles that infest stored products is crucial for reducing losses in harvest supply chains and improving food security and safety. Successful pest management programs require effective and timely monitoring systems; however, traditional detection methods are often time‐consuming, labor‐intensive, and reliant on taxonomic expertise. Automated approaches using computer vision offer improved efficiency, yet consistently struggle to distinguish between species due to the small size and morphological similarities among beetles. This study introduces an AI‐based image profiling framework for detecting the “Beetle Byte Quintet”—a group of five morphologically similar and economically important stored‐product beetle species: the maize weevil ( Sitophilus zeamais ), red flour beetle ( Tribolium castaneum ), rusty grain beetle ( Cryptolestes ferrugineus ), sawtoothed grain beetle ( Oryzaephilus surinamensis ), and lesser grain borer ( Rhyzopertha dominica ). Leveraging the capabilities of Vision Transformers (ViT), a model was trained on a manually curated, high‐resolution image dataset annotated to highlight distinctive morphological traits such as body shape, coloration, and exoskeleton patterns. Through this profiling approach, the ViT model achieved a classification accuracy of 99.34% during training and 96.57% on unseen test data, demonstrating strong generalizability and outperforming traditional CNN‐based classifiers. The integration of ViT enables interpretable attention maps, offering entomological insight and validation while supporting real‐time detection applications. This AI‐enhanced system presents a scalable solution adaptable to large‐scale storage facilities, contributing to precise, targeted pest control strategies that reduce economic losses and promote sustainable food security practices.

ABSTRACT Bees are critical for pollination services but are threatened by numerous biological and anthropogenic stressors. Although the impacts of these stressors on adult bees have been extensively studied, their effects on bee larvae remain poorly understood. So far, the only known method to measure larval stage (i.e., head capsule measurement) is invasive and increases the risk of larval mortality. To address this limitation, we evaluated three less‐invasive methods to determine larval instar in the buff‐tailed bumble bee Bombus terrestris (Linnaeus, 1758) (i.e., measuring larval body mass, measuring larval body area and extrapolating instars from larvae of the same batch). However, neither larval body mass nor larval body area appeared to cluster larvae into distinct instar stages. Additionally, larvae from the same batch did not consistently exhibit uniform instars, highlighting the risks of batch‐based extrapolation. Although no fully reliable less‐invasive methods were established, we encourage future research to include larval body mass or larval body area in their analyses.

ABSTRACTEffective cumulative temperature and developmental zero point are important indicators for estimating the timing of organism development and the area of distribution. These indicators are generally considered to have unique values for different species of organisms and are also important for predicting the distribution range of animals and plants, especially insect pests. These values generally are species‐specific, but there is variation within populations in traits having a genetic component. However, there are no studies on what kind of selection pressure affects these indicator values. To address this issue, it would be worthwhile to compare these values using individuals of strains that have been artificially selected for life‐history traits by rearing them at various temperatures and calculating these indicators from developmental days and temperatures. In the present study, eggs were taken from adults of strains with many generations of artificial selection on two life‐history traits (age at reproduction and developmental period) of the melon fly, Zeugodacus cucurbitae, under constant temperature conditions. Eggs were reared at five different temperatures, and the effective cumulative temperatures and developmental zero points of the larval and developmental periods were compared. The results demonstrate that artificial selection on life‐history traits in Z. cucurbitae induces evolutionary changes in both the effective cumulative temperature and the developmental zero point across successive generations.

ABSTRACTThe cotton boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis grandis Boheman) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) is the main pest of the cotton (Gossypium hirsutum Linnaeus) (Malvaceae) crop in South America. First reported in Argentina in 1993, it rapidly dispersed throughout the main cotton‐growing region, severely impacting the crop production. However, little is known about the external morphometry and variability of these populations. The main objective of the present study was to assess morphological variability among five boll weevil populations collected in the main cotton‐growing region of Argentina during two seasons (winter and growing seasons) using traditional morphometry. Nine morphological variables were measured in 30 individuals per population. Sexual dimorphism was not detected for any of the variables. Significant differences among populations were found based on location and season of collection. Principal component analysis (PCA) and a dendrogram revealed that winter populations clustered together, showing intermediate morphological values and low variability across the three sampled localities. Populations collected during the growing season grouped into two distinct clusters: one comprising populations from the Chaco province and the other from the remaining locations. One‐way ANOVA further supported these patterns, indicating significant differences among Anthonomus grandis grandis populations for “elytra length” and “total body length” variables. The results were discussed in relation to climatic conditions, cotton management practices, and alternative food sources, providing morphological records that could help optimize control strategies. Larger individuals, likely key reproducers, may require early control, whereas smaller ones may reflect suboptimal development due to limited nutritional resources or high intraspecific competition. These traits may also affect the survival of overwintering populations. Overall, these findings contribute to a better understanding of boll weevil population dynamics and their implications for integrated pest management.