Long-term seasonal forecasting of a major migrant insect pest: the brown planthopper in the Lower Yangtze River Valley.

Rice planthoppers and associated virus diseases have become the most important pests threatening food security in China and other Asian countries, incurring costs of hundreds of millions of US dollars annually in rice losses, and in expensive, environmentally harmful, and often futile control efforts. The most economically damaging species, the brown planthopper, (Hemiptera: Delphacidae), cannot overwinter in temperate East Asia, and infestations there are initiated by several waves of windborne spring or summer migrants originating from tropical areas in Indochina. The interaction of these waves of migrants and synoptic weather patterns, driven by the semi-permanent western Pacific subtropical high-pressure (WPSH) system, is of critical importance in forecasting the timing and intensity of immigration events and determining the seriousness of subsequent planthopper build-up in the rice crop.

Determining the migration duration of rice leaf folder (Cnaphalocrocis medinalis (Guenée)) moths using a trajectory analytical approach.

Many moths finish their long distance migration after consecutive nights, but little is known about migration duration and distance. This information is key to predicting migration pathways and understanding their evolution. Tethered flight experiments have shown that ovarian development of rice leaf folder (Cnaphalocrocis medinalis [Guenée]) moths was accelerated and synchronized by flight in the first three nights, whereby most females were then matured for mating and reproduction.

Wind-Related Orientation Patterns in Diurnal, Crepuscular and Nocturnal High-Altitude Insect Migrants.

Most insect migrants fly at considerable altitudes (hundreds of meters above the ground) where they utilize fast-flowing winds to achieve rapid and comparatively long-distance transport. The nocturnal aerial migrant fauna has been well studied with entomological radars, and many studies have demonstrated that flight orientations are frequently grouped around a common direction in a range of nocturnal insect migrants. Common orientation typically occurs close to the downwind direction (thus ensuring that a large component of the insects' self-powered speed is directed downstream), and in nocturnal insects at least, the downwind headings are seemingly maintained by direct detection of wind-related turbulent cues.

Predicting insect migration density and speed in the daytime convective boundary layer.

Insect migration needs to be quantified if spatial and temporal patterns in populations are to be resolved. Yet so little ecology is understood above the flight boundary layer (i.e.