Vibrational Calling Signals Improve the Efficacy of Pheromone Traps to Capture the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug

Halyomorpha halys (Stål, 1855), the brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB), is an invasive species that has become a key agricultural pest in its invaded range. Commercial traps available for BMSB monitoring rely on male produced aggregation pheromones as lure, with two possible shortcomings: trap spillover and low detection precision. In this study, we assessed if vibrational signals can increase the attractiveness of pheromone traps by testing the optimized vibration-based lure (Female Song 2, FS2) associated with a specifcally designed trap (i.e., the vibrotrap). We evaluated the efcacy of this bimodal trap (i.e., pheromones+vibrations) on females, males and nymphs in controlled conditions (greenhouse) and in the feld, in two sites at the margin of two commercial vineyards. In the feld, bimodal vibrotraps were compared to three unimodal (i.e., only pheromone) trap types. Both experiments showed that the vibrotrap is highly attractive for BMSB, and the optimized FS2 signal signifcantly improved its efectiveness. Even though FS2 was selected to target males, the number of trapped females increased as well. Overall, the presented fndings show a feasible improvement to future commercial BMSB traps through the synergic use of semiophysicals and semiochemicals. Further research is needed to evaluate the efectiveness of vibrotraps for both early detection and mass trapping.