Applications of acoustics in insect pest management

Acoustic technology has been applied for many years in studies of insect communication and in the monitoring of calling-insect population levels, geographic distributions and species diversity, as well as in the detection of cryptic insects in soil, wood, container crops and stored products. Acoustic devices of various sizes and power levels have been used successfully to trap insect pests that exhibit phonotaxis or other orientation behaviours, including mosquitoes, midges, mole crickets, field crickets, moths, cockroaches and Tephritid fruit flies. The attractiveness of traps depends on the behaviour, physiological state and age of the target insect, and varies with several environmental factors, including temperature and light level. Widespread adoption of acoustics for trapping has been limited by the costs of instrumentation and the relatively small segments of insect populations (e.g. mate-seeking adults of a limited age-range) that are attracted to a sound source, but trapping effectiveness often can be improved by adding swarm markers, chemical attractants or black lights, and by precisely timing temporal and frequency patterns to match the natural communication signals. There remains potential for using ultrasonic bat-cry signals to disrupt behaviour of night-flying insects, but ultrasonic signals have little effect on insects that are not normally preyed upon by bats. Potential areas for growth in the use of acoustic technology in pest management include the production of signals that disrupt vibrational communication, particularly in the Hemiptera, and the development of control treatments that combine pheromones and precisely patterned sonic or vibrational signals.