| Titre : | Geometrid outbreak waves travel across Europe |
| Auteurs : | Olle Tenow, Auteur ; Arne C. Nilssen, Auteur ; Helena Bylund, Auteur ; Rickard Pettersson, Auteur ; Andrea Battisti, Auteur ; Udo Bohn, Auteur ; Fabien Caroulle, Auteur ; Constantin Ciornei, Auteur ; Gyoergy Csoka, Auteur ; Horst Delb, Auteur ; Willy De Prins, Auteur ; Milka Glavendekic, Auteur ; Yuri I. Gninenko, Auteur ; Boris Hrasovec, Auteur ; Dinka Matosevic, Auteur ; Valentyna Meshkova, Auteur ; Leen Moraal, Auteur ; Constantin Netoiu, Auteur ; Juan Pajares, Auteur ; Vasily Rubtsov, Auteur ; Romica Tomescu, Auteur ; Irina Utkina, Auteur |
| Type de document : | Article |
| Dans : | Journal of Animal Ecology (82(1) JAN 2013) |
| Article en page(s) : | 84-95 |
| Résumé : | We show that the population ecology of the 9- to 10-year cyclic, broadleaf-defoliating winter moth (Operophtera brumata) and other early-season geometrids cannot be fully understood on a local scale unless population behaviour is known on a European scale. Qualitative and quantitative data on O. brumata outbreaks were obtained from published sources and previously unpublished material provided by authors of this article. Data cover six decades from the 1950s to the first decade of twenty-first century and most European countries, giving new information fundamental for the understanding of the population ecology of O. brumata. Analyses on epicentral, regional and continental scales show that in each decade, a wave of O. brumata outbreaks travelled across Europe. On average, the waves moved unidirectionally ESEWNW, that is, toward the Scandes and the Atlantic. When one wave reached the Atlantic coast after 910 years, the next one started in East Europe to travel the same c. 3000 km distance. The average wave speed and wavelength was 330 km year-1 and 3135 km, respectively, the high speed being incongruous with sedentary geometrid populations. A mapping of the wave of the 1990s revealed that this wave travelled in a straight |



