Data from: Challenges in assessing repellency as an integrated pest management tool to protect stored grains, using the global pest Tribolium castaneum

The work completed here assessed the repellency behavior of different essential oils on the red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum. The goal was to understand how non-chemical and naturally occurring oils could serve as repellents to stored product insect pests, leading to lower risk integrated pest management techniques. The work assessed 15 different oils for initial repellency in a small wind tunnel assay and performed further repellency assays on 7 that showed some potential in repelling the insects. Other assays used on the 7 potential oils were a larger wind tunnel assay, a bin assay that assessed taxis to the oil, and an overall behavioral assay that assessed distance moved, speed, and angular turning in the presence of the oil. We found inconsistent results of repellency of these oils, but a significant impact of the oils and whether red flour beetles were by themselves or in groups. The data provided here detail proximity to the oil for the small and large wind tunnel and the bin assays as well as distance metrics as calculated by the behavioral tracking program Ethovision XT.

Small wind tunnel data: treatment (oil or water), close = number of individuals close to the treatment, far = number of individuals far from the treatment, experiment = group or individual.

Large wind tunnel data: treatment (oil or water), S = number of individuals at stimulus edge, NS = no response, A = Away from treatment, B = close to tunnel.

Ethovision Data: rep = replicate beetle, all treatments are across the top, ethovision_output = identity of Ethovision calculation.

Bin Taxis: Treatment = repellent oil present, close = near oil, far = away from oil, oil_pair = what the control was paired with (for oils it is just repeated), time = duration of exposure.