Acoustic Monitoring of Insects

Farmers, grain elevator managers, and food processors often sample grain for insect-damaged kernels and numbers of live adult insects (Yigezu et al. 2010), but these easily obtained measurements of insect levels do not provide reliable estimates of the typically much larger populations of immature insects feeding internally (Perez-Mendoza et al. 2004). If stored products were transparent, sampling of this much larger immature population could enable better estimates of total population levels, earlier detection of internal insect infestations, and improved forecasting of when to aerate, fumigate, or sell for optimum profitability (Adam et al. 2010). Retail store managers could better focus on where and when to conduct sanitation efforts and remove infested stock or spillage (Arbogast et al. 2000). Breeders could screen more quickly for different varieties of grain that were resistant to larvae of different pest species (Devereau et al. 2003).