From branch to bench: establishing wild spruce budworm populations into laboratory colonies for the exploration of local adaptation and plasticity

Spruce budworm, Choristoneura fumiferana (Clemens) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae), is a destructive defoliator found throughout the Nearctic boreal forest. This pest has a broad geographic range and shows regional variation in key life history traits. These population differences may represent important adaptations to local environmental conditions and reflect underlying genetic diversity. Existing laboratory colonies of spruce budworm do not capture this regional variation, so we established five new spruce budworm colonies from across its range to explore regional adaptations among spruce budworm populations within common garden experiments. We present methods for establishing new spruce budworm laboratory colonies from wild populations. We describe the process of flushing, rearing, and disease screening used on these new populations to produce healthy disease-free laboratory stocks.