Study of the overwintering ecology of the hazelnut pest, Palomena prasina (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) in a perspective of Integrated Pest Management

Palomena prasina, the green shield bug (GSB), is widely distributed in the Eurosiberian region. In the Southwest of France it is considered a serious pest of hazelnuts, its feeding punctures lead to blank hazelnuts and kernel necrosis, causing heavy losses in commercial orchards. To date, no Integrated Pest Management strategy is available to control P. prasina.
Control strategies often focus on the pests’ spring-summer ecology, when they are in the field or in the vicinity of crops. However, the abundance of pest populations in crops is also related to their autumn-winter ecology.  The present work focussed on the autumn-winter ecology of P. prasina to identify new opportunities for this pest suppression. We investigate (i) where P. prasina overwinters, (ii) if it aggregates in its overwintering sites, and (iii) if it mates while overwintering. Samples were collected over a two-year period in different ecosystems (forests, hedges, orchards), in human-made structures, and habitats (litt..., Material and methods
1. Characterisation of overwintering sites
 
A field study was conducted in a zone with a radius of 20 km around the city of Cancon, France (44°32'09.7\"N, 0°37'30.1\"E, 160 m a.s.l.) from December to February (10 weeks), both in 2021 and 2022.
 
In 2021, three different types of ecosystems were studied: hazelnut orchards, linear hedges and woods. The hazelnut orchards were over 20 years old, at least 1 ha in size, and most of them were planted with the Pauetet cultivar, which is sensitive to P. prasina. They were all commercial orchards with no cultural practices or pesticide spraying during the study period (the last management practices before that period correspond to pesticide spraying in July and harvest in August-September). The linear hedges were lines of trees and bushes that separated two fields, and were more than 116 m in length. The woods were at least 0.68 ha in size. The hedges and the woods were mainly composed of local deciduous trees, different speci..., , # Study of the overwintering ecology of the hazelnut pest, *Palomena prasina* (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) in a perspective of Integrated Pest Management.

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.zcrjdfnjt](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.zcrjdfnjt)

*Six dataset from this paper are available. Data collection is described in the material and methods.*
*The files untitled \"Overwintering site\_human made structures.xlsx\", \"Overwintering site\_leaf\_litter.xlsx\" , \"Overwintering site\_foliage.xlsx\" and \"Overwintering\_sites\_abiotic\_parameters\" contain abundance data and abiotic parameters collected to study the overwintering site of P. prasina in human made structures, leaf litter and evergreen foliage . Then, data set named \"Spring\_emergence\_monitoring.xlsx\" corresponds to the abundance of P. prasina adults emerging from the leaf litter in spring, that were collected in the Cone traps (20) and the Circle traps (20) at both sites (a wood and a hazelnut orchard). Finally, the dataset \"Reproductive\_s...