Trap Responses of Flying Insects

Insect trapping is a basic field research tool for many biologists, whether they are studying insect pests, disease vectors or insect ecology for its own sake. Any field entomologist contemplating a new insect trapping program or looking to improve or develop an existing scheme will benefit from this broad review of flying insect traps, in which the author draws on a wide variety of methods used by different research projects from all over the world.

Over the years a great many traps have been developed and endlessly modified to suit particular species, habitats, and research requirements. In virtually every case the design of the trap interacts with the specific behavior of the insects involved to bias trap efficiency. In addition, the limited dialogue between workers in different subject disciplines and habitats has caused a shortage of new information available to field entomologists as a whole.