Fabrication and testing of artificial emerald ash borer visual decoys

The Emerald Ash Borer (EAB), Agrilus planipennis, is an invasive species threatening the ash trees of North America. EABs exhibit a mating behavior in which the flying male will spot a stationary female at rest, then execute a pouncing maneuver where he dives sharply onto the female. It is thought that this pouncing behavior is cued by some visual signal from the elytra of the EAB. A method for replicating the elytra of the EAB as artificial decoys was devised and implemented. In a field experiment, four types of bioreplicated EAB decoys with a dead EAB female to determine if the former were effective at cuing the pouncing behavior in males.