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There is an urgent need in Europe to prepare resources for the arrival of the emerald ash borer, Agrilus planipennis (Buprestidae, Coleoptera) from European Russia, and possibly other invasive jewel beetles. A lightweight, easy to handle, non‐sticky trap could facilitate monitoring and detection to derive information about emerald ash borer and other jewel beetle populations. In two experiments carried out over two consecutive years in an oak forest, a new non‐sticky multi‐funnel trap design with a light‐green (sometimes described as fluorescent yellow) visual cue was developed. Altogether, there were 238 (2018) and 194 (2019) specimens captured often (2018) and eight (2019) Agrilus species, eight of which are oak‐related and one (A. convexicollis) was linked to ash. The new light‐green multi‐funnel trap performed similarly to the sticky design with a similar coloured surface. Our results suggest that the new trap design may be suitable for catching a wide range of buprestid species. It may also have the potential to be further optimized with respect to visual and olfactory cues, which would provide an even more useful tool for monitoring both invasive and indigenous buprestids.

Migratory insect pests pose a substantial challenge to global food security. These issues are particularly acute when pest incursions occur considerably beyond the expected range, through natural migration or human-aided transport, as the lack of species-specific control strategies and a potential absence of species-specific natural enemies in the newly-invaded area, may lead to rapid establishment of a new pest. One such threat is posed by the Oriental migratory locust (Locusta migratoria manilensis) in China, which historically has been restricted to eastern China from the Bohai Gulf southwards, but now threatens to expand its range into the agriculturally important region of northeast China. We analysed data from a recent outbreak of migratory locusts in Heilongjiang (HLJ) province (extreme northeast China), >700 km north of its current known range, and identified the source region, timing of arrival and probable migratory routes of this incursion. We further show that warming temperatures in this region will likely allow subsequent invasions to establish permanent populations in northeast China, and thus authorities in this important crop-producing region of East Asia should be vigilant to the threat posed by this species.

Insect migration provides major ecosystem services, and sometimes, migratory pests cause serious crop damage and yield loss. Species identification is critically important in studies of insect migration, for both entomologists and pest managers. Radar is an effective means of detecting insect migrants. Current entomological radars usually operate at X-band, and signal amplitude information is used to estimate body mass and wing-beat frequency, which can then be used to categorize migratory insects into broad taxon classes. To improve the identification performance, this paper presents a novel radar method of measuring insect mass and body length. The multifrequency radar cross sections (RCS) of insects at X-band and Ku-/K-band are fully investigated, and the comprehensive relationship between RCS and insect morphological parameters provides an improvement in the estimation of insect mass. More importantly, estimations of body length can also be realized with an accuracy of 84% based on experimental data acquired by a vector network analyzer in a microwave anechoic chamber. If multifrequency RCS measurements can be obtained by radar in the future, then highly accurate estimations of insect mass and body length will be possible, although it is currently still a challenge to build a radar capable of making the required measurements over such a wide frequency range.

We hypothesized that changes in the pattern of spring precipitation would alter the species composition of a temperate soil-surface collembolan community. Experimental manipulation of precipitation during a drought in southern England was used to test this hypothesis in spring 1997. Replicated plots in a field of spring peas received spring drought (plots shielded from rainfall), reference (actual) rainfall and spring irrigation during the first 2 weeks of May. Shielding plots extended the existing drought to 58 days. Thereafter all plots received natural precipitation only, which in June considerably exceeded the long-term average for the site. Redundancy Analysis (RDA) and the recently-developed method of Principal Response Curves analysis (PRC) were used to summarise and test statistically changes in community composition under the three precipitation treatments, using counts of soil-surface species obtained by suction sampling. Irrigation decreased counts of Bourletiella hortensis, but had a positive impact on all other species studied, whilst the effect of spring drought was negative. Effects of spring precipitation persisted for the 97-day duration of the study despite the unusually wet summer. The possibility that changes in patterns of rainfall in northern Europe would promote some species as crop pests is proposed, but not supported by our findings. We use the collembolan data to illustrate some advantages of PRC analysis over RDA and other ordination techniques for analysing community responses to experimental treatments.