We compared all combinations of three commercial traps and five different attractants on the capture of stored-product insects for two consecutive years in three food processing facilities in Central Greece. Specifically, Facility 1 and 2 were pasta factories and Facility 3 was a flour mill. The traps that were used in the experiments were Dome Trap (Trécé Inc., USA), Wall Trap (Trécé Inc., USA) and Box Trap (Insects Limited, Ltd., USA). The attractants that were evaluated were 0.13 g of : 1) of PantryPatrol gel (Insects Limited, Inc., USA), 2) Storgard kairomone food attractant oil (Trece Inc.), 3) wheat germ (Honeyville, USA), 4) Dermestid tablet attractant (Insects Limited Inc., USA). The traps were inspected approximately every 15 days and rotated clockwise. The captured insects were transferred to the Laboratory of Entomology and Agricultural Zoology (LEAZ) at University of Thessaly for identification. The results indicated that there was a wide range of species within the three facilities throughout the trapping period, with the Indian meal moth, Plodia interpunctella (Hübner), the red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) and the cigarette beetle, Lasioderma serricorne (F.), being the most abundant. Although there were noticeable differences among the different traps and attractants for the capture of certain species, all combinations provided comparable population fluctuation patterns. In general, Dome traps, baited with either the oil or the gel, were found to be the most effective. There are not much data available so far for the simultaneous comparable use of different trapping devices and different attractants in commercial facilities for long-term monitoring. Certain lures are marketed toward particular pests or classes of pests, while others might be more generic, multi-species lures. To shed light on this issue, we evaluated a series of combinations of floor traps and attractants, in three commercial facilities in Greece, for a period of two years. Our questions included both which trap was broadly most effective as well as whether different combinations of traps and types of attractants were delivering novel information about the stored product insect community. The traps include two types of floor traps, and the wall trap used in the USDA khapra beetle detection programs. The lures included the Insects Limited ™ dermestid tab that is more specifically focused on food kairomones for only that taxon, and the same company’s PantryPatrol gel, which uses wheat kairomones and the pheromones of multiple species, including dermestids. We also use the Trécé Storgard kairomone oil, and simple wheat germ, which are both multi-species kairomones with no pheromones. Resources in this dataset: Resource Title: 2018 and 2019 field trapping data File Name: kb_greek_data_ag_data_commons.csv Resource Description: 2.1 Storage facilities The storage facilities in which this study took place are located in Central Greece. The selection of these facilities was based on their size, the accessibility from University of Thessaly (UTH) personnel and the known historical presence of stored product insect species and other arthropods. The sampling was conducted in three types of storage facilities refereed as Facility 1, Facility 2 and Facility 3. Facilities 1 and 2 are pasta factories, with substantial quantities of soft and hard wheat, flour and bran, but also some barley and maize, while Facility 3 is a flour mill, mostly focused on soft wheat processing. The deployment of the traps on each facility was conducted at 18 June 2018, 4 July 2018, and 3 July 2018 for Facility 1, 2 and 3, respectively. 2.2. Traps, attractants and inspection The trap types that were used in our experiments were Dome Trap (Trécé Inc., USA), Wall Trap (Trécé Inc., USA) and Box Trap (Insects Limited, Ltd., USA). These traps have been proven effective for monitoring purposes based on previous studies (Toews et al., 2009; Athanassiou and Arthur, 2018; Gerken and Campbell, 2021). Four attractants (noted also as lures) were used in our experiments, which were 0.13 g: 1) PantryPatrol gel (gel, Insects Limited, Inc., USA), 2) Storgard™ Oil kairomone food attractant (oil, Trécé Inc.), 3) wheat germ (WG, Honeyville, USA), 4) Dermestid tablet attractant (bait, Insects Limited Inc., USA). Also, an additional series of traps was used without any attractant, and served as “control” (e.g., ctrl). In Facility 1, the different traps and attractant combinations were replicated two times. In Facilities 2 and 3, the combinations were replicated three times, based on larger space availability. For each Facility, the traps were inspected approx. every 15 days, with the exception of some intervals where access to the trapping areas was not possible (e.g. due to fumigations in certain areas etc.). The traps were rotated clockwise after each inspection. The attractants were replaced at 15-day intervals, while the traps were replaced whenever it was considered necessary (damaged or lost traps). All captured insects were transferred to the Laboratory of Entomology and Agricultural Zoology (LEAZ), Department of Agriculture, Crop Protection and Rural Environment, University of Thessaly. 2.3 Identification The morphological identification of the captured individuals was carried out up to the species level, or lowest taxonomic unit, whenever this was possible using taxonomic keys, but in general many specimens are referred to as taxa. The insects found were classified into species (species identification) using different taxonomic keys (Bousquet, 1990; Peacock, 1993; USDA 1991). Data dictionary: rfb = red flour beetle cfb = confused flour beetle hfb = hairy fungus beetle lgb = lesser grain borer stgb = saw-toothed grain beetle cb = cigarette beetle rw = rice weevil gw = granary weevil imm = indianmeal moth rgb = rusty grain beetle trogoderma = dermestid genus
- CSV2018 and 2019 field trapping data