Click beetles disperse widely across farmland: what else do we need to know?

Abstract: For many years wireworm research focussed on the distribution of larvae and theircontrol in field crops. The development of sex pheromone lures has facilitated the study of adultmale distributions over greater spatial scales but the assumption that these would provide asimpler monitoring technique has not been fulfilled and it is now clear that we cannot beconfident about what the trap counts actually mean. This secondary focus on adult males neglectsthe critical issue of female behaviours in agricultural landscapes. Understanding these is essentialto the development of new management strategies in an era of declining insecticide availability.In this paper we briefly review what is known about the movement of click beetles acrossfarmland and identify research gaps that need to be filled if we are to develop area-widemanagement strategies.