The goals of pheromone‐mediated mating disruption are to interfere with mate finding, suppress insect population growth, and prevent crop damage. In addition to prevention of mating, pheromone treatment can also result in a delay of mating so that the fitness and subsequent population dynamics of the target insect pest are impacted. Females have a limited time to mate, mature eggs, and find suitable oviposition hosts, and a delay in mating can have large consequences on female fitness. As a result, delayed mating could be considered an indirect method by which mating disruption works to control pest populations. We perform a meta‐analysis on 24 experimental studies to assess the consequences of delayed mating on female moth fecundity, egg fertility, adult longevity, and pre‐oviposition period. Our goal is to determine whether the effect of delayed mating on female moth fitness is influenced by the following explanatory variables: moth family, voltinism, larval diet breadth, adult dispersal capacity, female mating strategy, and egg development strategy. Across species, the effect of delayed mating on female moths significantly decreases fecundity, fertility, and pre‐oviposition period and increases female longevity. The effect of delayed mating on female fitness is only marginally affected by the explanatory variables tested. We discuss the observed patterns and argue that delayed mating can be an important method by which population regulation is achieved through pheromone‐mediated mating disruption. Finally, we highlight areas where future research could add to the growing body of knowledge on mating disruption‐imposed delayed mating of female moths.

Drought is a major constraint of global crop production. Given that drought-induced crop losses can threaten world food security, it has been and continues to be the focus of a large body of interdisciplinary research. Most drought experiments are conducted under controlled environmental conditions, where maintaining accurate soil moisture content is critical. In this study, we developed a simple, Arduino microcontroller-based, semi-automated, lysimeter that uses the gravimetric method to adjust soil moisture content in pot experiments. This method employs an Arduino microcontroller interfaced with a balance as part of a portable lysimeter and irrigation system which can weigh and record the mass of plants growing in pots, determine water loss due to evapotranspiration, and adjust soil moisture automatically to a desired relative soil water content. The system was validated with a greenhouse pot experiment using a panel of 50 early-maturity Canadian soybean varieties. Drought was induced in the experiment by adjusting soil moisture content to 30% field capacity while maintaining control pots at 80%. Throughout the experiment, the two moisture levels were efficiently maintained using the Arduino-based lysimeter. Plant physiological responses confirmed that plants in the drought treatment were under physiological stress. This semi-automated lysimeter is low-cost, portable, and easy to handle, which allows for high-throughput screening.

A goal in insect–microbe ecology is to understand the mechanisms regulating species associations and mutualistic interactions. The spotted wing drosophila Drosophila suzukii develops in ripening fruit, unlike other drosophilids that typically feed on overripe fruit, and is associated with the yeast Hanseniaspora uvarum. We hypothesized that D. suzukii and H. uvarum engage in niche construction leading to a mutualistic relation, facilitating the exploitation of fruit and berries as larval substrate. We show that H. uvarum proliferates on both ripe and on unripe raspberries, mediates attraction of D. suzukii larvae and adult flies, enhances egg‐laying in mated females and is a sufficient food substrate to support larval development. Moreover, H. uvarum suppresses the antagonistic grey mould, Botrytis cinerea in collaboration with D. suzukii larvae, and produces less ethanol than baker's yeast. H. uvarum thus creates favourable conditions for D. suzukii larval development, which is susceptible to ethanol and grey mould. D. suzukii, on the other hand, vectors H. uvarum to suitable substrates such as raspberries, where larval feeding activity enhances growth of H. uvarum. Larval feeding also helps to suppress B. cinerea, which otherwise outcompetes H. uvarum on raspberry, in the absence of fly larvae. In conclusion, H. uvarum enhances D. suzukii larval development on unripe berries, and D. suzukii promotes H. uvarum dispersal and growth on berries. Yeast and fly modify their shared habitat in reciprocal niche construction and mutual interaction. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

A new species, Contarinia brassicola Sinclair (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae), which induces flower galls on canola (Brassica napus Linnaeus and Brassica rapa Linnaeus (Brassicaceae)), is described from Saskatchewan and Alberta, Canada. Larvae develop in the flowers of canola, which causes swelling and prevents opening, pod formation, and seed set. Mature larvae exit the galls, fall to the soil, and form cocoons. Depending on conditions, larvae will either pupate and eclose in the same calendar year or enter facultative diapause and emerge the following year. At least two generations of C. brassicola occur each year. Adults emerge from overwintering cocoons in the spring and lay eggs on developing canola flower buds. The galls produced by C. brassicola were previously attributed to the swede midge, Contarinia nasturtii (Kieffer) in Saskatchewan; here, we compare and list several characters to differentiate the two species.

Coleophora deauratella Leinig and Zeller (Lepidoptera: Coleophoridae) is an invasive pest of red clover, Trifolium pratense L. (Fabeles: Fabaceae), grown for se