First records of the tomato leaf miner Tuta absoluta (Meyrick, 1917) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) in South Africa

Abstract

Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) is an invasive and extremely damaging leaf-mining moth of South American origin. It is a serious pest of tomatoes. This species was first recorded outside of its native range in Spain (2006), and has subsequently spread into Asia and Africa. Here we report the first records of this species for the Republic of South Africa, where moths were first trapped in August and October 2016. The species was identified using both morphological and molecular approaches. Monitoring of the spread of tomato leaf miner in South Africa and the implementation of control measures are managed by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF), South Africa.

First report of tomato leaf miner, Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae), in Botswana

“…Other general features like body size and colour also concurred with those of T. absoluta. Observed male genitalia conformed to that of T. absoluta as described by [35] and also in agreement with [26] (Fig. 4).…”

“…Thereafter, it invaded the Mediterranean Basin, Europe, Middle East, South Asia (India), and north, east and west Africa [13,16,18]. In north Africa, T. absoluta was detected north of the Sahel, Tunisia and Morocco in 2008 [16,19,20], west Africa; in Niger and Nigeria in 2010, and in Senegal in 2012 [21] east Africa; in Sudan and Ethiopia in 2011 [21,22], in Kenya in 2013 [11], in Tanzania in 2014 [23] and in Uganda in 2015 [11], southern Africa; in Zambia [24] and in South Africa in 2016 [25,26] (see distribution map, Fig. 1).…”

Seasonal decline of the tomato leafminer, Tuta absoluta, in the shifting landscape of a vegetable‐growing area

“…The pest spread to sub-Saharan Africa (Biondi et al, 2018), including Eritrea and Sudan (Mohamed et al, 2012), Ethiopia (Retta & Berhe, 2015), Niger (Adamou et al, 2016), Senegal (Pfeiffer et al, 2013), Kenya (Tonnang et al, 2015), Uganda (Tumuhaise et al, 2016), and Tanzania (Chidege et al, 2016). It has also been reported recently in Burkina Faso (Son et al, 2017), South Africa (Visser et al, 2017), and Nigeria (Borisade et al, 2017). The pest is multivoltine and larvae attack the parenchyma of leaves (mining) at any developmental stage of tomato plants, but they can also dig tunnels into stems and fruits (Desneux et al, 2010).…”

Population growth potential of Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) on tomato, potato, and eggplant

“…It has the potential to cause 80%-100% yield losses in tomato (Balzan & Moonen, 2012;Cocco, Serra, Lentini, Deliperi, & Delrio, 2015;França, 1993;Souza & Reis, 1992;Torres, Evangelista, Barras, & Guedes, 2002). Recently, the pest has been reported from India (Sankarganesh, Firake, Sharma, Verma, & Behere, 2017;Sridhar, Chakravarthy, Asokan, & Vinesh, 2014), Nepal (Bajracharya et al, 2016), South Africa (Visser, Vivienne, Roedolf, & Welma, 2017) and it has now spread to Canary Island, Algeria, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Egypt, Morocco, Libya, Senegal, Niger, Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda in the African continent (Biondi et al, 2018;Campos, Biondi, Adiga, Guedes, & Desneux, 2017;Tonnang, Mohamed, Khamis, & Ekesi, 2015).…”