The Tent Caterpillar

The Black Cherry Tree/Eastern Tent Caterpillar/ Eastern Tent Caterpillar Frass System

Competitive effects of the forest tent caterpillar on the gallers and leaf-miners of trembling aspen

Interspecific competition has been identified as a major structuring force in phytophagous arthropod communities. We would expect to find particularly strong competitive effects in communities with outbreaking components, where the joint food resource is depleted by a single super-abundant species. To assess how arthropod assemblages of the trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides, Salicaceae) resp...

Impact of Tent Caterpillar Defoliation on the Reproductive Success of Black-capped Chickadees’

Outbreaks of folivorous Lepidoptera caterpillars are common in temperate forests (Ives and Wong 1988, Butterworth 1990). The high fat content, low chitin content, and large size of these larvae make them an important component of the diet of many temperate birds (Betts 1955, Robinson and Holmes 1982, Holmes and Schultz 1988, Sample et. al. 1993). Outbreaks of most species should increase availa...

The Mare Reproductive Loss Syndrome (MRLS) and the Eastern Tent Caterpillar: Immunological Testing of Aborting Mares

Mare reproductive loss syndrome (MRLS) describes a condition of equine early-term and late-term fetal losses in which the etiology has not been fully characterized. Involvement of Eastern tent caterpillars (ETC) has been highly considered because oral administration of ETC rapidly induces abortion in pregnant mares. Pathologic lesions observed in placental and fetal tissues of horses with chara...

Variation in the Suitability of Host Tree Species for Geographically Discrete Populations of Forest Tent Caterpillar

The forest tent caterpillar,Malacosoma disstriaHübner (Lepidoptera: Lasiocampidae), is distributed throughout North American hardwood forests. Although considered polyphagous, regional populations tend to use only a few host species for oviposition, suggesting that M. disstria is more oligophagous than commonly thought. We tested this premise using larvae from Manitoba, Canada; Michigan; and Lo...