From fields to landscapes: pheromone trapping and feeding damage of Sitona lineatus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) during range expansion in Canadian pulse crops

Abstract The pea leaf weevil, Sitona lineatus L. (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) is an invasive pest of field pea, Pisum sativum L. (Fabaceae), and faba bean, Vicia faba L. (Fabaceae) undergoing range expansion in Canada. Pheromone-baited pitfall traps were deployed across commercial field pea sites in major pulse-growing regions of Alberta, Canada to monitor adult populations and assess feeding damage on host plants. Trap capture of S. lineatus indicates that pheromone-baited traps can serve as a predictive monitoring tool for both range expansion and local feeding populations. This study is the first to demonstrate that pheromone-baited trap capture of S. lineatus predicts subsequent adult notching damage on field pea and next generation S. lineatus adults. Abiotic factors including temperature, humidity, and precipitation, influenced trap capture, and landscape composition and heterogeneity affected weevil abundance at multiple spatial scales. These findings highlight the combined effects of local crop characteristics, environmental conditions, and landscape-level dynamics in shaping S. lineatus populations. The study supports the use of pheromone-baited traps for monitoring of S. lineatus, providing critical information to guide integrated pest management strategies for S. lineatus in field pea and faba bean agroecosystems.