Description succincte
(Anglais)
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Wireworms, the larvae of click beetles, are abundant soil-dwelling insects which attack the below-ground parts of a wide range of crops, thereby inflicting severe economic damage. Typically, wireworms damage crops when they forage in the upper soil layers. They migrate to deeper layers when soil conditions become unfavorable, or for moulting and hibernation. Predicting these vertical movements and identifying when wireworms actually dwell in upper versus deeper soil layers is crucial for the decision and timing of control measures for these pests. Recently, the prognosis model SIMAGRIO-W has been developed as a decision support system to forecast the activity of Agriotes wireworms in upper soil layers, based on soil moisture, temperature and soil type. Albeit successfully applied in field tests in western Germany, the model performed poorly when it was evaluated in eastern Austria. This discrepancy in the model’s performance may be due to differences in temperature tolerance between the different Agriotes species occurring in eastern Austria and in Germany. Moreover, the model does not take into account other parameters which might be important drivers of wireworms’ vertical movements such as species-specific movement behaviors, larval age, root availability, and plant volatiles This project directly addresses these gaps of knowledge and aims to significantly improve the current model to develop a wireworm decision support system which is applicable across European arable land. Laboratory experiments, which will reveal how specific parameters affect larval vertical movement behavior of abundant Agriotes species will be combined with field surveys in potato, maize and chicory fields across several European regions. This data will be used to extend and improve the model, which will thereafter be evaluated using an independent set of field data. Additionally, through the coordinated field surveys in many countries, the main pestiferous species of wireworms occurring in different regions will be identified, which is an important prerequisite for a widely applicable IPM strategy against wireworms. As such this project provides a unique opportunity for creating a novel strategic decision making tool for pestiferous wireworms which would not be possible to obtain through research in any one country alone.
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