Host relationships at plant family level in Dendrothrips Uzel (Thysanoptera: Thripidae: Dendrothripinae) with a new Australian species

Abstract

The genus Dendrothrips Uzel (Thysanoptera: Thripidae, Dendrothripinae) comprises 50 described species from the Old World, including a fourth species from Australia, D. williamsi sp. n. For many of these species no host plant has been recorded, but the genera and families of the recorded host plants of 27 species are tabulated. These thrips are mainly associated with trees and shrubs, and the plant families involved come from five of the six subclasses of the Dicotyledonae. Several Dendrothrips species are recorded from Oleaceae and Flacourtiaceae, but none from the major families of tropical trees, Moraceae and Lauraceae.

Australian Thysanoptera – biological diversity and a diversity of studies

“…Several species of Neohydatothrips that are endemic to Australia have been taken from native Fabaceae, and at least three species of Hydatothrips occur in this country on different species of Parsonsia vines (Apocynaceae). Species of Dendrothrips occur on a wide range of plant families across the Old World (Marullo 2003), but the hosts are usually trees and shrubs with relatively hard leaves, two of the endemic Australian species occurring only on Flacourtiaceae. Similar association with leaf texture, rather than plant systematics, is particularly notable in Neohoodiella jennibeardae that breeds only on the hard rugose leaves of the monocotyledonous vine Ripogonum elseyanum and the dicotyledonous tree Ficus coronata (Mound & Williams 2003).…”

Genera of the leaf-feeding Dendrothripinae of the world (Thysanoptera, Thripidae), with new species from Australia and Sulawesi, Indonesia

“…Species of the subfamily Dendrothripinae all live and breed on green leaves, and the range of host-plants on which breeding is known ranges from ferns to fig trees. Several species of Dendrothrips are particularly associated with the family Oleaceae (Marullo 2003), species of Pseudodendrothrips are commonly associated with Moraceae, and the species of Edissa and Petrothrips live on Poaceae. The subfamily is found worldwide, but with individual genera having restricted distributions.…”

Austral Thysanoptera: 100 years of progress

“…For example, the genus Synaptothrips is endemic to South Africa in association with the inflorescences of the Protea species, and there are at least four endemic species of Aeolothrips , a large genus that is otherwise restricted to the Holarctic. Also, there is a curiously large number of endemic species of Dendrothrips , a genus of Thripidae associated with the hard leaves of various tree species, such as Oleaceae (Marullo ). However, the available checklist (zur Strassen ) lists species alphabetically by genus, thus making it difficult to consider diversity across the order.…”