First Report of Phanerotoma bennettiMuesebeck (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Cheloninae) Parasitizing Hypsipyla grandella (Zeller) and Hypsipyla ferrealis Hampson (Lepidoptera, Pyralidae) in Crabwood in Brazil

Crabwood [Carapa procera DC. (Meliaceae)] is an Amazonian species with great commercial potential. Plants in the Meliaceae family are widely used by insects, which often become serious forest pests. Infestation by Hypsipyla Ragonot (Lepidoptera, Pyralidae) makes it unfeasible to cultivate these Meliaceae. Hypsipyla larvae apparently feed exclusively on Meliaceae, subfamily Swietenioideae, including plants of high economic value such as those in the genera Swietenia Jacquin, Khaya A.Juss, Toona Endlicher, and Cedrela P. Browne (Griffiths, 2001).

Biological control of Hypsipyla is an important strategy to be implemented as part of the integrated management of these pests in Meliaceae. s. However, little is known about their native natural enemies.

This is the first report of the parasitoid Phanerotoma bennetti Muesebeck, 1955 (Hymenoptera, Braconidae) attacking Hypsipyla grandella (Zeller) and Hypsipyla ferrealis Hampson (Lepidoptera, Pyralidae) in the crabwood Carapa procera DC. (Meliaceae), State of Amazonas, Brazil.

Thirty-eight specimens of P. bennetti were collected on larvae and pupae of H. grandella and H. ferrealis in Carapa procera in the Ducke Forest Reserve (02° 55′-03° 01′ S and 59°53′-59° 59′ W), in fifteen samples collected in April-May 2006. Voucher specimens were deposited in the Invertebrate Collection of the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA) Manaus, Brazil and in the Collection of the Departamento de Ecologia e Biologia Evolutiva (DCBU), Universidade Federal de São Carlos in São Carlos, São Paulo, Brazil.

Several families of parasitoids (Braconidae, Ichneumonidae, Chalcididae, Trichogrammatidae) have been reported as natural enemies of the immature stages of H. grandella in Central America, North America, South America, and Africa, including Hypomicogaster hypsipylae (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Microgastrinae) (Desantis, 1973) and Trichogramma semifumatum Perkins (Hymenoptera, Trichogramatidae) on H. grandella eggs (Grijpma, 1973). For H. ferrealis, the only parasitoids reported to date are Trichogrammatidae in Costa Rica, Trinidad, and Venezuela (Sands and Murphy, 2001).

In Brazil, Podogaster townesi (Graf 1983) (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae, Anomaloninae) has been reported on pupae of H. robusta (Sands and Murphy 2001), and Trichogrammatomyia tortricis Girault, 1916 (Hymenoptera, Trichogrammatidae) has been reported on eggs of H. grandella (Ohashi et al., 2005). There have been reports of the introduction of the parasitoids Trichogrammatoidea nana, T. robusta, and Phanerotoma sp. for biological control (Sands and Murphy, 2001). However, these need to be confirmed, as the information is vague.

As yet, there is no efficient means for the control of Hypsipyla pest species through the use of natural enemies in commercial plantations (Newton et al., 1993). The discovery of Phanerotoma bennetti as a parasitoid of Hypsipyla represents a possibility for the biological control of these species in seeds of C. procera.

Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Vitor O. Becker for identifying the Pyralidae.

References

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Feb 2014

History

• Received
  6 Nov 2012
• Accepted
  27 Dec 2012