Agriotes wireworms (Coleoptera: Elateridae) are abundant soil-dwelling herbivores which can inflict considerable damage to field crops. In Europe up to 40 species occur, differing in their ecology and pest status. Their distribution in the larval stage, however, has rarely been assessed because of the considerable effort in collecting wireworms and the difficulties in identifying them to species-level. Here, we examined the occurrence of Agriotes wireworms in Austrian agricultural land with regard to their association with climatic and soil parameters. Using a molecular identification system, 1348 field-collected larvae from 85 sites were identified to species-level. Three species, Agriotes obscurus, Agriotes brevis, Agriotes ustulatus, and two that could not be discerned molecularly (Agriotes lineatus and Agriotes proximus), were assigned to two ecological groups: (i) A.brevis/A. ustulatus, found in areas with a warmer, drier climate and alkaline soils, and (ii) A. obscurus/A. lineatus/proximus which occur mainly at higher altitude characterised by lower temperatures, higher precipitation and acidic, humus-rich soils. Agriotes sputator was abundant throughout Austria, confirming its euryoecious nature. Only one larva of Agriotes litigiosus was found, prohibiting further analysis. These data contribute to a characterisation of species-specific traits in Agriotes larvae in agricultural land, an important prerequisite to develop efficient control strategies for these wireworms.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10340-011-0393-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Wireworms, the larvae of Agriotes spp. (Coleoptera: Elateridae), cause serious damage to a number of crops. To develop an effective management strategy, a reliable method of estimating the abundance of the Agriotes species is needed. This paper describes a trapping study of Agriotes in parts of Austria. Over two years, adult click beetles were monitored using YATLOR sex pheromone traps and wireworms were monitored using bait traps. Also, the efficiency of bait traps with different numbers of perforations was compared. In a location in Upper Austria, A. lineatus was by far the most common species and in a location in lower Austria, the majority of beetles caught were A. ustulatus. A. brevis was common in Upper Austria, but nearly absent in Lower Austria. There were large discrepancies between the species compositions of the adults and larvae caught, suggesting a low efficiency of the bait traps. More larvae were caught in bait traps with greater numbers of holes, but the difference was not statistically significant. Further improvements in bait traps or another sampling method will be needed to accurately estimate the density of wireworms.
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