Top-Down versus Bottom-Up Control in Insect Populations: High Order Interactions and Spatial Variation

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9903601DennoThis study will examine the role of "top-down versus bottom-up" control in insect populations. It will provide a unique opportunity to address these issues and to assess spatial variation and may have many applications in the control of planthopper populations. This study will use a series of field and laboratory experiments coupled with path analysis and structural modeling. In particular, this research will investigate the individual and interactive effects of two abundant invertebrate predators (wolf spiders and mirid bugs) which co-occur on the Atlantic salt marshes of North America. It is hoped it will determine the consequence of their interaction on the population and growth of their shared prey, a common planthopper that feeds on the phloem sap of Spartina cordgrass. The ability to predict the combined effects of multiple predators is critical both to the refinement of predator-prey efforts and to the improved management of severe agricultural pests such as planthoppers