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PREDATION BY RED SQUIRRELS ON THE SPRUCE BUDWORM CHORISTONEURA FUMIFERANA (CLEM.) (LEPIDOPTERA: TORTRICIDAE)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2012

Daniel T. Jennings  and
Hewlette S. Crawford Jr.
Daniel T. Jennings
Affiliation:
Northeastern Forest Experiment Station, USDA Building, University of Maine, Orono, Maine, USA04469
Hewlette S. Crawford Jr.
Affiliation:
Northeastern Forest Experiment Station, USDA Building, University of Maine, Orono, Maine, USA04469
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Predators of the spruce budworm, Choristoneura fumijerana (Clem.), include both invertebrates and vertebrates (Jennings and Crawford 1985). Birds are the best known and most extensively studied vertebrate predators, but because of their arboreal and omnivorous feeding habits, the deer mouse, Peromyscus maniculatus (Bangs), and the red squirrel, Tamiasciurus hudsonicus (Bangs), often are implicated as potential predators of budworm larvae and pupae (Morris et al. 1958; Morris 1963; Otvos 1981; Welsh 1983). In laboratory feeding trials, W.F. Chesire estimated that red squirrels had a mean food capacity of 600–700 mature larvae or pupae of the spruce budworm per day (Morris 1963). R.T. Mitchell examined the stomach contents of 25 red squirrels collected during a major spruce budworm outbreak in northern Maine (Dowden et al. 1953); he found that spruce budworms made up 51% of their total food. On the basis of these results, Dowden et al. (1953) estimated that a red squirrel could eat 400–500 larvae per day.

Type
Articles
Information
The Canadian Entomologist , Volume 121 , Issue 9 , September 1989 , pp. 827 - 828
Copyright
Copyright © Entomological Society of Canada 1989

References

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