Ecological Studies on Cotton Mealybug, Phenacoccus solenopsis Tinsley (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha: ‎ Coccoidea: Pseudococcidae) on Eggplant at ‎ Sharkia Governorate, Egypt

Abstract

Entomology Journal publishes original research papers and reviews from any entomological discipline or from directly allied fields in ecology, behavioral biology, Field experiments were conducted on cotton mealybug, Phenacoccus solenopsis Tinsley (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha: Coccoidea: Pseudococcidae) which infested eggplant at Hihhya distract, Sharkia Governorate during two successive seasons 2015 and 2016. The population density, activity periods, the effects of some weather factors, number of insect generations and preferable leaf surface of of P. solenopsis were considered. The obtained results revealed that the total numbers of a live stages had four peaks of activity during the first season. They were in third week of June, third week of July, fourth week of August and second week of September. While, during the second season, three peaks of activity were noticed in the last week of June, first week of August and second week of September. The total effects of some weather factors such as maximum and minimum air temperature (˚C) and relative humidity percentage (R.H.%) showed positive significant relationship with the cotton mealybug population. P. solenopsis had three generations during the first and second seasons the first generation was taken seven weeks. While, the second and third generations took sex weeks. The first generation was during the period extended from the third week of May till the end of June, the second one took place from the first week of July till the second week of August and the third one was during the period extended from the third week of August till the third week of September. The insect pest preferred the lower leaf surface than the upper one during the first and second seasons.

Using Age-Stage Two-Sex Life Tables to Assess the Suitability of Three Solanaceous Host Plants for the Invasive Cotton Mealybug Phenacoccus solenopsis Tinsley

“…The theory suggests that the most appropriate host plant for a polyphagous insect pest should allow shorter APOP and TPOP and higher fecundity, net reproductive rate (R 0 ) and finite rate of increase (λ). Nabil [41] reported very high population densities of P. solenopsis in open field crops of eggplant in the Hihhya district, Sharqia Governorate in Egypt, reaching 328.75 individuals/leaf during September 2016. High densities of different instars of the pest reaching 150 individuals per plant were also recorded when reared on tomato in Israel by Spodek et al [11].…”

Distribution Of Phenacoccus Solenopsis Infesting Okra Plants: Evidence for Improving a Pest Scouting Method.

“…The above findings show that P. solenopsis favours the lower surface of the okra leaf over the upper surface. According to Nabil 14 and Mohamed 12 , they reported that the population of P. solenopsis was higher on the lower leaf surface than on the upper surface. This supports the theory that the distribution of mealybugs on the same plant is linked to the plant's age, the location of infestation, and the structural strength of the plant.…”

Coccoidea infesting goldenberry, Physalis peruviana L. with ecological and control studies of the cotton mealybug, Phenacoccus solenopsis tinsley (Hemiptera, Coccomorpha, Pseudocccidae) from Egypt

“…From its recorded in Egypt in 2010 the pest was spreading rabidly infesting different host plants (Ibrahim et [25,8,6,9,15,33,11] . Accordingly, many studies were conducted on the Ecology, population density, dynamical fluctuations, associated natural enemies and biology of Phenacoccus solenopsis on many host plants (Nabil, 2017;Shehata, 2017;Nabil, and Hegab, 2019; Abd El-Mageed et al, 2020) [34,44,35,11] . Many control studies conducted to reduce its population by using natural and chemical compounds as well as measuring the effect of natural enemies to reduce the pest population level below the economic threshold (Mohyuddin et al 1997 [31,17,40,5,22,41,20] .…”