Abstract
The habitat preference of domiciliary cockroaches in urban environments in Shanghai, China was evaluated with sticky traps. Residential houses (N=40), one-room restaurants (N=20) and hotel restaurants (N=8) were sampled with 1 sticky trap/15m^2,for 2 nights/month for 2 years. Blattella germanica was the most common (96%) species trapped in hotel restaurants, and Periplaneta fuliginosa was the most common (94%) cockroach trapped in households. P. americana was limited to 2-6% of the total cockroaches trapped in the three environments sampled. The one-room restaurant environment was intermediate in terms of heat, food, and water between the other two environments. B. germanica (76%) and P. fuliginosa (19%) were the most common species in one-room restaurants. The presence of German and smokybrown cockroaches in urban environments in Shanghai may be determined by availability of heat in buildings in winter, and abundance of food and water throughout the year. Hotel restaurants are heated in winter, and German cockroaches are common year round. Houses are not heated in winter and smokybrown cockroaches are most common during summer. In residences the number of smokybrown cockroaches trapped peaked in July 1987,and July and October 1988.
