SUCCESS OF INSECTS

Insects have a cosmopolitan distribution i.e. they are found all over the world even in very harsh
conditions, the success of insects can be attributed to:
1. Small size
The size of most insects will range from 0.2 120mm, this makes them to have ba low
requirement for food and shelter, this also makes them to easily hide in cracks, crevices etc.

2. High reproduction rate

Insects have a high reproduction rate due to their high prolificacy and have a short generation
period. One individual female can lay thousands of eggs depending on species, which will hatch
into young ones which also will take a very short time before they start reproducing also. Hence
many generations per year are possible.

3. Exoskeleton
Hard exoskeleton, this bars excessive loss and entry of water, also acts as armour from physical
damage.

4. Flight
Their ability to fly gives them great flexibility in searching foir new food sources, oviposition
sites and rapid escape from danger zones.

5. High adaptability
Good adaptation to external environment e.g. when cold weather arrives, insects enter into
winter dormancy (diapause). In hot weather which may be too dry ( hence no green food
available) insects enter into summer dormancy or Aestivation.
6. Polyphagy
Insects are able to feed on a wide range of plants , thus even when the primary host plant which
might be the main crop is out of season, insects live on alternative hosts while waiting for the
main crop e.g. stainers are chiefly pests of cotton, but in the absence of cotton they can happily
survive on Okra and other Malvacae crops.

INSECT FEEDING HABITS

1. Biting and chewing types
These damage branches, stems, leaves, roots by biting off plant parts. Damage is easy to notice
as parts of plants are usually bitten off in a characteristic way. The damage may be internal or
external e.g. stalk borers, leaf miners, cut worms, tuber moths.

2. Piercing and sucking types

These insects have long mouth parts and are able to pierce and suck sap from plant parts, these
insects are important in the transmission of viral diseases e.g., aphids, white flies, stainers.

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3. Sucking or siphoning type
These insects feed entirely on liquid food, many butterflies and moths in their adult forms live
on liquid food which they suck by means of a coiled proboscis. They do not puncture plant
tissues.

4. Rasping and sucking types

These rub their short mouthparts against the cuticle which is then ruptured to release juices on
which the insects feed. Rasping results in the formation of many spaces, which are filled with air
giving a silvery appearance. Rasping and sucking insects includes Onion thrips.

4.0 INSECT BEHAVIOR

There is a great need to better understand the factors that govern the insect-plant relationship
before an attempt is made to adopt any control strategies that will prevent their outbreak.
The necessary information should first be available on the following which guides the general
pattern of insect behaviour:
-Food habits
-Oviposition pattern
-Movement
-Parameters of growth and fecundity
-Effect of the environment on the pest population
One of such behavioural adaptations of insects is the utilization of the host plants which
generates a number of activities on the part of the insect for its establishment in a crop. They
include:
Host specificity
Sequential activity for host selection
Dispersal and search for hosts
Orientation and recognition of hosts
Individual variability
Ovipositional preference and food selection

a) Host specificity

Of the million or so insects, the majority of them are plant-feeding forms. But, no one plant
species is susceptible to attack by all insect species and no one insect species is capable of
utilizing all the plant species on which a given insect is known to occur in nature.
Therefore, insects are subdivided into three categories depending on the specificity of their host
plant range:
-Monophagous

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These are insects that are restricted to plants of a single species or at most a few closely related
species.
-Oliphagous
These feed on plants within one family or members of related families.
-Polyphagous
Insects in this category utilize host plants from more than one botanical order.
However, the host plants specificity is also further divided in terms of the plant part being
utilized by the insect (leaf miners, stalk borers, root feeders etc.) and also by adult differences in
the feeding specificities of the larval stages of the insect. In some insects, larvae are
monophagous whereas adults tend to have the polyphagous feeding pattern.

b) Sequential activity for host selection

Host-plant selection is the behavioural sequence by which an insect distinguishes between host
and nonhost plants.
Thus, there is always a behavioural pattern of host-plant preference among insects through
which their predilection (e.g. link) to select some plants in preference to others within the host-
plant range is expressed.
For instance, some insects such as maize stalk borers are able to utilize other crops like peper or
even tomato. The host selection is always a function of the female as she is almost exclusively
deposit eggs only on maize, which is therefore the preferred host plant.
A number of sequential activities often precede the host selection driven by internal reactions
either for egg deposition or for feeding.
A hungry leafhopper for instance locates and feeds on their host plants by means of a short
sequence of stimulus/response processes including:
1. The flight approach to the plant is stimulated by its color;
2. Alight (e.g. descending) is then triggered by olfactory stimuli;
3. Plant tissue probing with the proboscis is in response to foliage color and contact stimuli;
4. Tissue acidity stimuli guide the proboscis to the phloem, and
5. Gustatory stimuli in the phloem sap stimuli continuous feeding.

c) Dispersal and search for hosts

Movement activity is the manifestation of two different drives, serving different functions.
Dispersal may lead to a more homogeneous distribution of the insect population and to
the invasion of new areas. This is often the activity of adults but some larvae also
disperse.
Search behavior on other side increases the chance of encountering stimuli initiating the
behavior al pattern which can culminate in either oviposition or feeding.

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Example: Aphids may react negatively to green foliage and positively to blue sky. Then they take
off and fly for hours in a dispersal flight. When the behaviour then changes to that of search
behaviour, they are attracted to green surface under them, and they alight on any green plant. If
such plants on which they land are nonhosts, the aphids revert to the dispersal behaviour and
flight ensues. This alteration between dispersal and search behaviour continues until an
acceptable host plant is located.

d) Orientation and recognition of the host

Both physical and chemical factors are involved in guiding either the ovipositing female or any
insects to potential plants for food. The insects orientation behaviour is always followed by
recognition behaviour in which the plant is either is accepted or rejected as a host.
Physical factors are-colour and shape which can be perceived by insects
-Amount of foliage pubescence
-Presence of crevices or activities on the leaf surface
-Soil particles of certain size are preferred
-Hard spines and dense pubescence prevent landing.
Chemical factors which include more especially volatile chemicals from plants are frequently
involved in orientation to plant from a distance but are also known to stimulate biting, probing
and oviposition after the insect is in physical contact with the host plant.
The main factor is the plant odour. The insect often direct their movements towards the odour
source. As long as they remain in the odour stream, their weakly zigzag flight paths are
maintained until the source. Then, they resume randomly directed turning, which will bring
them back in the odour stream. When the gradient of the odour becomes steeper the
locomotion is inhibited and consequently induces the insect to land.
Most insects have a highly developed sensory system that allows them to distinguish host to
nonhost plants.
e) Individual variability

Individual differences in behaviour as compared to the general population behaviour sometimes

occur in insects. This could be due to inherited variability or some specific conditions to which
these individual insects are exposed to. Examples: the insect population may prefer a specific
type of host plant as food while a small number reject it.

f) Ovipositional preference and food selection:

Oviposition is an act of a female insect to lay eggs. oviposition preference is the principal
mechanism by which the insecthost relationship is established. It is this trait of the insect that

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interacts with spatial distributions, abundances and acceptabilities of plants to generate
patterns of insecthost association across the landscape.
Insects choose where to lay their eggs. The eggs will be laid in places where the young ones
would easily be fed.