Scirtothrips aurantii is a generalist horticultural pest in its native African range and recently established quite widely in Australia on the invasive succulent weed Bryophyllum delagoense. Paradoxically, this thrips is not polyphagous in its incursive range. The issue is principally one of quarantine. Will the thrips in Australia shift, perhaps adaptively, to citrus, and should the primary fo...

Orius insidiosus (Say) and O. pumilio (Champion) were confirmed to be sympatric in north central Florida as the major predators of the Florida flower thrips, Frankliniella bispinosa (Morgan), on flowers of Queen Anne's lace, Daucus carota L. and false Queen Anne's lace, Ammi majus L. F. bispinosa was the predominant thrips observed on both flowers but colonized D. carota to a greater extent an...

Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande) (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) , the western flower thrips, is the primary insect pest of tomatoes and other vegetable crops in northern Florida and the rest of the southeastern USA. However, it is not the only flower thrips present in the region nor is it always the most abundant species. To determine the seasonal and within plant distribution of these various ...

Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) is an economically important virus that is transmitted in a persistent propagative manner by its thrips vector, Frankliniella occidentalis. Previously, we found that a soluble form of the envelope glycoprotein G(N) (G(N)-S) specifically bound thrips midguts and reduced the amount of detectable virus inside midgut tissues. The aim of this research was to (i) dete...

Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande) is a key pest of various crops worldwide. In this study, we analyse the dependence of the infestation of this pest on spatially distributed micro climatic factors in a rose greenhouse. Despite the importance of this subject, the few existing studies have been realized in laboratory rather than in greenhouse conditions. However, recent progress on greenhouse...

Tospoviruses belong to the sole phytovirus genus, Tospovirus, in the family Bunyaviridae. Tospoviruses are known to be exclusively transmitted by thrips belonging to the family Thripidae and subfamily Thripinae. Of the known 1,710 species of Thripidae only 14 thrips species are currently reported to transmit tospoviruses. Thrips-transmitted tospoviruses cause severe yield losses to several econ...

Frankliniella bispinosa (Morgan) is the key pest of southern highbush blueberries ( Vaccinium corymbosum L. × V. darrowi Camp) in Florida. Thrips feeding and oviposition injury to developing flowers can result in fruit scarring that renders the fruit unmarketable. Previous studies have shown that flower thrips can disperse into cultivated crops from surrounding host plants. Therefore, the objec...

With the discovery of Neohydatothrips variabilis (Beach) as a vector of Soybean vein necrosis virus (Family Bunyaviridae Genus Tospovirus), a relatively new pathogen of soybean, a multiyear study was initiated in Wisconsin (2013 and 2014) and Iowa (2014 and 2015) to determine the phenology and species composition of thrips in soybean fields. Yellow sticky card traps were used to sample thrips a...

The population dynamics and biology of the gall-inducing insect, Crotonothrips polyalthiae Mound & Nasruddin, and its damage to Polyalthia longifolia Sonn. were studied in Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, from 15 Aug 2010 to 25 Jul 2011. The average number of thrips per gall, young leaves per plant, and bi-weekly rainfall peaked 3 times during the survey. The average number of living thrips...

It is suggested that descriptive taxonomy of thrips must be integrated into biological studies if we are to understand patterns of evolutionary and ecological diversity. Collecting and describing new taxa is easy, but understanding their position in ecosystems and how they have contributed to the origin and maintenance of biological diversity is more important yet more difficult. Many authors f...