Pests in the collection: What’s normal?

In putting together an updated IPM strategy for the Frost Entomological Museum we wondered how our practices and environmental conditions compared to other entomological collections. The most recent surveys we found were published by Edwards, Bell, and King (1980) and Linnie (1994). Clearly a lot(!) has changed in the last 23 years, as we now use fewer chemicals in our IPM and have more knowledge generally about best practices. We hope this survey, the results of which will be presented at ECN in Denver (November 2017), will inform our strategy going forward. We also hope the accumulated numbers, facts, figures, and recommendations (i.e., DATA) will help us and others argue for more infrastructure investment. This survey was approved by Penn State's IRB ( https://www.research.psu.edu/irb - study ID STUDY00008081)