title: Comparison of traps and development of a two-stage sampling plan for smokybrown cockroaches (Dictyoptera: Blattidae) outdoors.
abstract: Four commercial sticky traps were compared with jar traps for sampling smokybrown cockroaches, Periplaneta fuliginosa (Serville), outdoors. Lo-Line and Raid Roach Traps caught more cockroaches than jar traps, whereas the Mr. Sticky and Roach Motel caught < 40% of the cockroaches caught in jar traps. Sampling properties of traps (data collected over 4 yr and 3 cities) were examined retrospectively. Taylor's a and b coefficients were both significantly > 1 for jar traps, Raid Roach Trap, and Lo-Line trap. Estimating cockroach catch typical of Alabama (< 3 per trap) at single houses would require > 20 traps with a precision of 0.25 (i.e., standard error as a proportion of the mean). Taylor's power law was also used as a predictor for within-house (i.e., pooled within-house) and between-house catch variances. Coefficients for these predictors are presented that can be used in a fixed-precision 2-stage sampling plan to estimate cockroach catch from large areas.
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, Auburn University, AL 36849-5413, USA.
authors.forename: L M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: A G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Appel
authors.forename: T P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Mack
authors.forename: G J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Keever
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D007300:Insect Control / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D010526:Periplaneta