Stinkbugs!

Of all the medium-sized insects that inhabit Southern California, stinkbugs might be the most frequently overlooked…or perhaps more accurately, ignored. Back in 2014, when UC-Riverside entomologist Mark Hoddle and I brainstormed this project, we were interested to see if citizen science might be a way to get a better track on what one species of stinkbug - Halyomorpha halys (the brown marmorated stinkbug) - might be doing this part of the state. At that same time, we thought people would also find other species of stinkbug easy to spot, harmless, and even amusing.

An introduced species that had proven to be a huge nuisance in the eastern US, H. halys (BMSB) was beginning to be established in SoCal, but how extensive would be its distribution? What might be its impact on other Pentatomid species? At this point, almost 2000 iNaturalist users have recorded upwards of 50 stinkbug species in Southern California, occurrences from north of Point Concepcion south to the Tijuana area; from the Imperial Sand Dunes to the southernmost Sierras. By this record, the distribution of BMSB is still fairly restricted, to the greater Los Angeles area with some occurrences in San Diego County. This largely follows the spread of two other introduced species, Bagrada bug and African cluster bug, to the degree that one could conclude that such introduced Pentatomids follow intense human movement and development pretty closely.

By comparison, native species of stinkbug are still seen frequently and over large areas. The flamboyantly-marked harlequin bug is sighted most often (especially in coastal areas associated with habitat of the bladder-pod plant), but stinkbugs of the genus of Thyanta have shown the largest distribution, from mountains to deserts to the coast, in many cases following the distribution of agricultural lands. (T. pallidovirens is apparently a pest of California’s pistachio crops.)

Publicado el 25 de junio de 2020 por jbryant