Earwig abundance monitoring in orchards

This protocol aims at evaluating the abundance of earwigs (mainly Forficula auricularia and Forficula pubescens) at orchard level. Earwigs are generalist predatory arthropods which are natural enemies of various pomefruit pests (woolly apple aphid (Mueller et al 1988), apple aphids (Carroll & Hoyt 1984; Dib et al 2010), codling moth (Knight et al 1997)) and pear psylla (Shaltiel & Coll 2004). As they are mainly active at night, this method permits to evaluate their numbers during the day when they are not active.

Authors: Sylvaine Simon, Yvan Capowiez (INRA).