Effect of Urbanization on Invasive Spotted Lanternfly Body Size

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Grant: NSF

Renato Mendez

CoPIs:
Alyssa Moffitt, Ayush Patel

College:
The Dorothy and George Hennings College of Science, Mathematics, and Technology

Major:
Environmental Sciences

Faculty Research Advisor(s):
Brenna Levine

Abstract:
Body size is an important trait related to reproductive success and overall fitness, and in ectotherms, it is affected by the temperature of the environment. According to an ecological principle known as the temperature-size rule, cooler environmental temperatures result in slower development but overall larger adult size. While the temperature-size rule is most often considered with regards to latitude (i.e., Bergmann’s Rule), the warmer temperatures in urban environments (i.e., urban heat island effect) may similarly affect body size. Here, we used the invasive spotted lanternfly as a model to understand how urbanization affects ectotherm body size. The spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula), an invasive insect native to China, began to invade the mid-Atlantic and northeastern regions of the United States circa 2014. In Fall 2021, we collected 872 spotted lanternflies from 51 sites spanning an urban-rural gradient. Using digital calipers, we took two body size measurements for each individual: the distance from the nose tip to the wing tip and the distance from the nose tip to the abdomen tip. We also calculated this measure, the ratio between the two body size metrics. We used arcGIS to quantify percent impervious surface for each site from the National Land Cover Database as a proxy for degree of urbanization. Mean percent impervious surface at each site ranged from 5% in rural areas to 64% in urbanized settings. We report on the relationships between percent impervious surface and body size metrics for males and females. The results of our study clarify the relationship between urbanization and body size with important implications for the management of invasive ectotherms.

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