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The weevil Scyphophorus acupunctatus Gyllenhal (Coleoptera: Cuculionidae) is the most important insect pest of wild and cultivated agaves worldwide. This weevil causes direct damage while feeding and egg laying on host plants, and indirect damage due to the wounds on agave tissue that may serve as an entry for plant pathogens. Sampling and control of this weevil is complicated because of its cryptic habits. Thus, the use of synthetic aggregation pheromone-baited traps may be a useful tool for monitoring or control of this pest. The attraction of agave weevil to pheromone traps is synergized by the presence of host plant tissue. In this study, we evaluated the effect of the amount of fresh agave tissue and bagging of the plant tissue on the capture of S. acupunctatus with pheromone-baited traps in a blue agave crop. The highest captures of weevils were obtained in traps baited with the synthetic pheromone plus 400 g of agave tissue. Weevil capture rate was increased when the food bait was placed into a plastic bag or plastic container with holes as compared with unbagged food bait. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was conducted for determining the pioneer sex of agave weevil on agave plants. Field experiments were made on plantations of Agave tequilana Weber var. Azul in Jalisco, and Agave angustifolia Haw. and Agave cupreata Trel. & Berger in Guerrero. It was found that both sexes were able to start colonizing agave host plants. Most of the females that colonized host plants were gravid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scyphophorus acupunctatus Gyllenhal (Coleoptera: Dryophthoridae) is one of the most important insect pests of wild and cultivated agaves in Mexico. For managing this weevil, it is important to have a method for detecting and sampling its population density. The weevil's life cycle takes place inside the agave plant, which makes sampling of the weevil difficult. The use of traps baited with synthetic pheromone plus agave tissue is a useful tool for sampling the population density of this pest. Using the capture-mark-release-recapture method, we investigated the attraction range of traps baited with synthetic pheromone plus agave tissue to capture S. acupunctatus. We also evaluated several inter-trap distances to determine the best density of traps for monitoring this insect. Our results showed that these traps attracted S. acupunctatus up to a range of 120 m. In addition, we found that the cardinal point at which weevils were released affected their recapture. The results also showed that, in general, experiments with the longest inter-trap distances captured the most weevils. Thus, traps placed at 100 m in the 1st experiment, 200 m in the 2nd experiment, and 250 m in the 3rd experiment captured more weevils than traps placed at shorter distances. Based on our results of attraction range and inter-trap distances, we suggest that these pheromone-baited traps could be used for monitoring S. acupunctatus at densities of 1 trap per 6 ha of blue agave crop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]