Insect pests reduce plant health and marketability, which frequently requires chemical intervention to produce a saleable product

Pollinators play a critical role in U.S. Agriculture and ecosystem functioning, but insecticides used during crop production can harm them. Most pollinator toxicological data focus on bees. Lepidopteran pollinators (i.e., butterflies and moths) differ in susceptibility to insecticides compared to bees and have different routes of exposure (e.g., larval leaf-feeding versus nectar consumption). Consequently, products compatible with BEE conservation pose an unknown risk to lepidopteran pollinators, yet both taxa are pervasive in agroecosystems. Florida's ornamental plant industry has an estimated economic impact of $21 billion, ranking second in the nation. Ornamental plants are a major component of rapidly expanding urban landscapes where 80% of the U.S. Population resides, thus making pesticide use during production and perennial maintenance relevant to most people and to future landscapes. We will develop lepidoptera ippm strategies for ornamental plant production, use our results to create a wildlife-friendly plant production certification program, and increase the positive environmental and ecological impact of ornamental plant production.activities:1. Review novel data documenting the acute, chronic, lethal, and sublethal effects of pesticides to monarchs over time. 2. Publish in two scientific publications discussing project results and implications submitted to an open-source, peer reviewed journals. 3. Distill and review any new evidence-based ippm recommendations for controlling key SAP-feeding insect pests while mitigating impacts to lepidopteran pollinators in a plant production environment. 4. Develop a cost-benefit analysis to determine economic viability and effectiveness of ippm recommendations. 5. Conceptualize and produce five web-based training modules to certify industry professionals in the use of ippm strategies to protect insect pollinators during ornamental plant production. 6. Publish in two industry trade journal articles and two extension publications disseminating our ippm recommendations. 7. Participate in one local, one statewide, one regional, and one national training event to increase awareness of ippm production practices. 8. Develop final report summarizing all project activities, data, publications, and quantified outcomes.subrecipient:the applicant has budgeted a subcontract to UF icbr insecticide residue analysis. In addition to quantifying effects of insecticides on monarchs via exposure through herbivory, the applicant will quantify potential exposure to butterflies and other pollinators via the movement of insecticides into milkweed nectar. Tropical milkweed flowers are actively visited by bees and butterflies, and evidence suggests that some systemic insecticides can reduce monarch adult longevity via nectar feeding and thus may serve as another route for non-target insecticide impacts (james 2019). We will obtain a. Curassavica plants (12 per insecticide treatment) that are in full bloom, prune off all flowers, make foliar insecticide applications, and maintain the plants using standard production practices to promote new flower development. Two weeks, four weeks, and six weeks after treatment, the applicant will collect nectar from all plants during the early morning. The applicant will pool nectar samples from each plant within a treatment and preserve them in micro-centrifuge vials in a -80 freezer until processed for insecticide residue analysis. The applicant will use existing partnerships with the university of florida interdisciplinary center for biotechnology research (UF icbr) to analyze all nectar samples for insecticide residue concentrations.outcomes:OBJ. 1: determine the chronic and sublethal effects of insecticides to monarch larvae and adults at application rates targeting key pests. Deliverable: applicant will conduct