Journal of the Society of Agricultural Structures, Japan

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Whiteflies are known to have a characteristic ecology in which individuals communicate acoustically with each other by attaching to the dorsal surface of the leaf body and vibrating the leaf with their legs, and the sound or vibration is transmitted to another whiteflies. Recently, it has become clear that this acoustic communication plays an important role in mating behavior. In this paper, we constructed an acoustic sound localization system using a narrow-spacing microphone array (16ch-MA) to observe the acoustic communication of whiteflies on the leaf body. We compared and verified two types of sound source localization methods: Indicator A (TDoA: time difference of arrival) and Indicator B (PDoA: power difference of arrival). The system was designed using a heat map of the indicators, which were used to estimate the pronunciation location. As a result, it was confirmed that the location of whiteflies and the location given by the heat map approximately matched. Acoustic communication and behavior could be ecologically monitored when a single whitefly was on a leaf, when a male and a female were parasitized as one pair, and when a male and a female were parasitized at different positions on the leaf body. We were also able to estimate the positions of pronating whiteflies when 10 whiteflies were released. In the experiment, indicator A (TDoA) tended to be suitable for cucumber leaves, and indicator B (PDoA) for perilla leaves.

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