Publication Details

Year Published

2009

Publication

Population Ecology. 51: 427-444.

Abstract

Recent work indicates that Allee effects (the positive relationship between population size and per capita growth rate) are critical in determining the successful establishment of invading species. Allee effects may create population thresholds, and failure to establish is likely if invading populations fall below these thresholds. There are many mechanisms that may contribute to Allee effects, but mate-location failure is a common cause in sexually reproducing insects. Consequently, mate-location failure represents a type of "weak link" that may be enhanced in order to achieve eradication of insect populations during the early stages of invasion. In this paper, spatially implicit models that account for mating behavior of both sexes are used to explore the enhancement of matelocation failure in pest eradication programs. Distinct from the previous studies, the Allee effect emerges from a mechanistic representation of mate-location failure in our model. Three specific eradication strategies, sterile insect release, mass-trapping, and mating disruption, are incorporated into the model and tested for their ability to depress population growth during the early stages of invasions.

Keywords

Citation

Yamanaka, Takehiko; Liebhold, Andrew M. 2009. Spatially implicit approaches to understand the manipulation of mating success for insect invasion management. Population Ecology. 51: 427-444. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10144-009-0155-3.