Invasions on Large and Small Scales: Management of a Well-established Crop Pest, the Colorado Potato Beetle

Understanding the movement of invading organisms is critical to predicting invasion dynamics. The Colorado potato beetle, Leptinotarsa decemlineata (Say), is an invasive species on multiple spatial and temporal scales, and can serve as a model for studies of invasion dynamics. It is the major insect defoliator of potato in North America, and successful management requires an understanding of CPB invasions of individual fields. Its origin, spread, and biology, especially the cycle of annual invasions of agricultural potato fields, are described. Approaches to reducing the size of colonizing populations include rotation, delay of planting, and treatments of field margins. Rotation and sub-lethal insecticide treatments can slow the establishment of invasions within fields. These approaches interact with a late season diapause switch away from reproduction to reduce the impact of CPB. The refuge approach to delaying the fixation of resistance alleles is designed to encourage alleles for susceptibility to invade treated areas. We present data from an experimental refuge crop planted adjacent to a field treated with imidacloprid, an insecticide for which there is high variation in resistance. The treated field was four times as resistant as the untreated side, and a cline in resistance was formed from the untreated to the treated portion of the field. The cline width of about 100m provides an empirical basis for designing refuges to enhance the spread of alleles for susceptibility into treated areas and prevent fixation of resistance in the summer generation.