Journal
ENVIRONMENTAL ENTOMOLOGY
Volume 43, Issue 5, Pages 1157-1167Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC
DOI: 10.1603/EN13356
Keywords
population regulation; density dependence; sexuparae; forest insect
Categories
Funding
- U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service [09-CA-11420004-360]
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The hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae Annand) has decimated eastern hemlocks (Tsuga canadensis Carriere) in forests throughout the eastern United Sates, but its densities in central New England appear to have stabilized. To find out why, we infested 64 eastern hemlocks with varying densities of adelgid ovisacs in a typical eastern hemlock forest in western Massachusetts. We subsequently documented adelgid density, fecundity, and the amount of new growth on experimental trees over two consecutive years. We used a 2 by 2 randomized block design using previously and newly infested hemlocks that were either 1-m tall saplings or branches of mature trees. There was a density-dependent decline in the survival and fecundity of adelgid in both the spring and winter generations. This response was a function of both previous infestation by adelgid and current year's crawler density in the spring generation. Additionally, the production of sexuparae in the spring generation played a key role in the overall density-dependent survival of adelgid, suggesting that sexuparae production is strongly linked to developing crawler density.
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