ABSTRACT
Integrated pest management (IPM) was founded on the premise that pests should be managed as populations based on the collective potential injuriousness to their host. A primary focus for IPM, therefore, is to discover, develop, and utilize sampling techniques and procedures that provide accurate and consistent estimates of arthropod populations as a proxy for estimating host injuriousness. This chapter reviews several basic techniques currently employed for the surveillance and sampling of arthropods. Primary categories include: techniques for surface and above-ground arthropods, techniques for soil arthropods, and techniques for indirect assessment of arthropods. Frequently, however, wet sieving is used as one extraction phase in conjunction with one or more other wet extraction techniques. Wet extraction techniques that require migration generally are not viable for sampling arthropods because of their need for atmospheric oxygen. Techniques for indirect assessment can be considered in two primary categories, measuring arthropod-induced injury and measuring arthropod products, and third category that recently has begun development, acoustic imaging.
