Landscape drivers of Euschistus servus and Lygus lineolaris in small grains

Across North Carolina, wheat and other small grains are an ephemeral early season habitat for two key heteropteran pests, brown stink bug (Euchistus servus Say) and tarnished plant bug (Lygus lineolaris Palisot de Beauvois). After the crop senesces, these key pests disperse to sensitive host crops like cotton, soybean, and maize. The overarching goal of this project was to document heteropteran pest population abundance across a gradient of agricultural intensity in the North Carolina small grains. We hypothesized a greater abundance of agricultural land will positively relate to E. servus and L. lineolaris abundance in wheat fields. In 2019 and 2020, heteropterans sweep sampled at 69 small grain fields in six eastern NC counties. Across both years, the amount of agriculture, year, and agriculture by year interactions were significant for both L. lineolaris and E. servus populations. Understanding landscape-level drivers of heteropteran population variation in small grains is a first step toward documenting sequential linkages between non-crop overwintering habitats, early season small grains, and later season host crops.