Geographic variation in thermal tolerance of western corn rootworm.

ABSTRACT: Western corn rootworm, Diabrotica virgifera virgifera, is one of the most economically important crop pests in the world with estimates of damage and control costing over $1 billion USD annually. Yet despite an abundance of research devoted to studying rootworm biology in the central Corn Belt of the United States, information on key aspects of their thermal biology is still lacking. In this study, we quantified thermal metrics of western corn rootworm populations from across their range in the United States: we measured critical thermal limits, knock-down resistance, and chill coma recovery for male and female rootworm from 13 laboratory colonies that were collected across 1985 km at locations that varied by up to 5.7 °C in mean annual temperature. We further use these data to test a mode

SUBMITTER: Roeder KA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12271397 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature