Reproduction of three eulophid wasps that parasitise larvae of the citrus leafminer

Abstract

The citrus leafminer, Phyllocnistis citrella Stainton (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae) (CLM), is a citrus pest indigenous to Southeast Asia. It was discovered in Israel in 1994. The pest attacks the young foliage of citrus, and damage is caused by the larvae tunnelling under the epidermis of young leaves, leading to foliage destruction. The present study documents basic biological parameters of three exotic eulophid wasps in the laboratory: Semielacher petiolatus, Quadrastichus citrella and Teleopterus sp. S. petiolatus females preferred to lay eggs in the 3rd larval instar of CLM, but did not lay eggs in the 1st instar. Its development ranged from 9 to 14 days. Female longevity was 30.295.9 days, its daily oviposition was 12.1690.68 eggs/day, the total number of eggs oviposited per female was 278.9974.1, and the number of CLM larvae parasitised was 260.0968.3. Q. citrella preferred to lay in the 3rd and 4th instar larvae, but not in the 1st instar, its development ranged from 9 to 14 days, female longevity was 40.691.9 days, oviposition came to 8.390.6 eggs/day, the total number of eggs oviposited was 281.3964.9/female and the number of parasitised CLM larvae was 276.5963.7. Teleopterus sp. preferred to lay eggs in the 3rd larval instar, its development required 11Á17 days, female longevity was 28.793.8 days, its daily number of offspring was 5.290.38 offspring/day and with emergence of 138.9927.7 offspring/female. This knowledge enabled us to maintain high quality cultures for their releases in Israel. University of Jerusalem, for comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

Population Dynamics of Citrus Leafminer, Phyllocnistis citrella Stainton (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae) and Its Parasitoids on Mandarin Trees in Sharkia Governorate, Egypt

“…Regarding CLM parasitoids, Semielacher petiolatus (Girault) and Cirrospilus ingenuus (Gahan) are known to be solitary ecto parasitoids for CLM larvae and pupae. (Rizzo et al, 2006;Argov et al, 2012). They were selected as CLM main parasitoids, in the present work, for two reasons: (1) these parasitoids were more abundant on mandarin leaves as indicated during the preliminary field experiment of the present work.…”