Natural parasitism of Metaparasitylenchus hypothenemi (Tylenchida: Allantonematidae) on the coffee berry borer in Chiapas, Mexico

The parasitic nematode Metaparasitylenchus hypothenemi (Tylenchida: Allantonematidae) was first reported infecting the coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei (Ferrari); Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae) in coffee plantations of Chiapas, Mexico (Castillo, Infante, Barrera, Carta, & Vega, 2002), and was later described as a new species (Poinar, Vega, Castillo, Chavez, & Infante, 2004). This discovery was noteworthy because it increased the limited number of natural enemies attacking the coffee berry borer, the main insect pest of coffee worldwide (Vega, Infante, Castillo, & Jaramillo, 2009; Vega, Infante, & Johnson, 2015), and revealed the presence of endemic populations of a biological control agent in an area where the insect had been introduced. Even though several papers have reported on commercially available entomopathogenic nematodes (Steinernema or Heterorhabditis) infecting the coffee berry borer in the laboratory (Allard & Moore, 1989; Castillo & MarbánMendoza, 1996; Lara, López-Núñez, & Bustillo, 2004; Benavides, Quintero, & López, 2010; Manton, Hollingsworth, & Cabos, 2012), only one other record of a nematode attacking the insect under natural conditions exists: Panagrolaimus sp. (Rhabditida: Panagrolamidae) parasitizing adult coffee berry borers in India (Varaprasad, Balasubramanian, Diwakar, & Rao, 1994). M. hypothenemi infects larvae, pupae and adult stages of the coffee berry borer, causing partial or complete sterilisation of adult females (Poinar et al., 2004). In this study, we assessed the natural parasitism and distribution of M. hypothenemi in coffee plantation in the state of Chiapas, Mexico, in order to elucidate its role in the biological control of the coffee berry borer.