Abstract: traps designed and made by authors and imitated cylindrical traps, in which synthetic sex pheromone, (Z, E)-9, 12-tetradecadienyl acetate(TDA) was used as attractive source for the Indian meal moth Plodia interpunctella, were employed. Five factors possibly affecting captures of the insects (Y), i.e. daily average temperature (X₁), days of synthetic sex pheromone applied (X₂), number of male moths released in the first day(X₃), accumulated number of male moths released within two days (X₄) and accumulated number of male moths released within three days (X₅), were determined in the laboratory. Multiple linear regression and progressive regression were used to screen among the five factors. The results showed that there was a linear correlation between the five factors and the number of male moths captured on conditions that the daily average temperature ranged from 18.5℃ to 26.2℃ and the synthetic sex pheromone (TDA) was exposed from 9 to 37 days. As the three independent varieties X₂, X₄, X₅ with insignificant coefficient of partial regression were eliminated, a multiple linear regression equation was derived as follows: Y=-27.31+1.37X₁+0.28X₃. The multiple correlation coefficient ® of this equation was 0.90>R_0.01(n-2,0.63). This result indicated that both the daily average temperature and the number of male moths released in the first day were closely related to the number of male moths captured each night. Chi-square test proved no significant difference between the actual values and calculated ones for moths captured.

Key words: Indian meal moth, synthetic sex pheromone trap, affecting factors, multiple linear regression