South American Spider Mites: New Hosts and Localities

Abstract

In order to contribute to taxonomic information on Tetranychid mites (Acari: Tetranychidae) in South America, surveys were conducted in Brazil (15 States and the Federal District) and Uruguay (one Department); 550 samples of 120 plant species were collected. Tetranychid mite infestations were confirmed in 204 samples, and 22 species belonging to seven genera of the Bryobiinae and Tetranychinae subfamilies were identified on 58 different host plants. Thirty-six new plant hosts were found in Brazil, South America, and worldwide for the following species: Eutetranychus banksi (McGregor); Mononychellus tanajoa (Bondar); Oligonychus anonae Paschoal; O. mangiferus (Rahman and Sapra); Tetranychus bastosi Tuttle, Baker and Sales; T. desertorum Banks, 1900, T. evansi Baker and Pritchard; T. ludeni Zacher; T. mexicanus (McGregor); T. neocaledonicus André; and T. urticae Koch. Four new localities in Brazil were reported for Eotetranychus tremae De Leon; O. anonae; Panonychus ulmi (Koch); and T. gloveri Baker and Pritchard.

Attack of two new spider mites on sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) in Diamantina, Minas Gerais State, Brazil

“…Tetranychus urticae was associated with the species Ambrosia polystachya D.C. Asteracea (ragweed); Parthenium sp. Asteracea (parthenium); Pyrostegia venusta Miers Bignoniaceae (flame vine); Phaseolus lunatus L. Fabaceae (lima beans); Macroptilium atropurpureum (L.) Fabaceae (siratro); Passiflora edulis Sims Passifloraceae (yellow passion fruit); Triticum aestivum L. Poaceae (wheat); Alpinia purpurata K. Schum Zingiberaceae (alpinia) and Lantana camara L. Verbenaceae (wild sage) (Mendonça et al, 2011). The species T. ludeni and T. urticae occur together and have potential to cause severe damage and death to sweet potato plants cultivated in Brazil.…”

Natural Enemies Associated with Phaseolus lunatus L. (Fabaceae) in Northeast Brazil

“…Generally, in South America insect pests are a limiting factor adversely affecting the agricultural production of Fabaceae, especially in genus Phaseolus. For example, Aphis craccivora Koch (Hemiptera: Aphididae), as well as the phytophagous mites Eutetranychus banksi (McGregor) (Acari: Tetranychidae) and Tetranychus urticae Koch (Acari: Tetranychidae) (Coceano et al 1998;Mendonça et al 2011) have been reported to severely affect the production of several bean species.…”

Preference of red mite Tetranychus ludeni Zacher (Acari: Tetranychidae) to sweet potato genotypes

“…Mites herbivores are common pest in agriculture (Ghazy and Suzuki, 2014;Navia et al, 2009), ornamental plants (Silva et al, 2009) and forests (Pereira et al, 2012;Deus et al, 2012) infesting a wide range of plant hosts (Mendonça et al, 2011) and are among the most important pests across the world. Tetranychus ludeni Zacher (Acari: Tetranychidae) commonly found in the tropics (Zhang, 2002), occurs worldwide and infests more than 250 plant species (Gotoh et al, 2015), especially eggplant (Solanum melongena) and okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) (Reddy, 2001).…”