Biology of Spodoptera frugiperda (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) on different types of plants feeds: Potency as a pest on various agricultural plants

Abstract

Spodoptera frugiperda is a new invasive and highly polyphagous pest that attacks corn in Indonesia. The availability of abundant plant species allows pests to switch to other host plants to maintain their population. The aim of this research is to examine the development, reproduction, nutritional indices, and life table of S. frugiperda in several plant species. The plants tested were corn, rice, broccoli, oil palm, and baby corn as controls. Ten individual insects were used and the experiments were repeated five times for each plant species. The test results show that different types of plant feed affect the development time, imago life span, fecundity, and fertility of S. frugiperda. Baby corn fruit and broccoli had higher net reproduction value (R0), intrinsic growth rate (r), gross reproduction rate (GRR), shorter mean generation period (T), and population doubling time (DT) than corn and rice leaves. On oil palm leaf feed, no population parameters could be determined because no larvae developed into adults and had the lowest nutritional indices parameters, so that, oil palm could not be exploited as a host plant. Also, the nutritional indices of several feed plant species tested provided information that broccoli could be the most suitable host compared to other plants tested when there was no corn in the field.