Identifying cryptic species of Planococcus infesting vineyards to improve control efforts

• Published in: Journal of pest science Vol. 96; no. 2; pp. 573 - 586
• Main Authors: Correa, Margarita C. G., Palero, Ferran, Pacheco da Silva, Vitor C., Kaydan, M. Bora, Germain, Jean-Francois, Abd-Rabou, Shaaban, Daane, Kent M., Cocco, Arturo, Poulin, Elie, Malausa, Thibaut
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01-03-2023; Springer Nature B.V; Springer Verlag
• Subjects: Agriculture; Biological control; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Control programs; Cryptic species; Ecology; Economic impact; Entomology; Environmental Sciences; Forestry; Genetic diversity; Haplotypes; Impact analysis; Impact damage; Insects; Life Sciences; Morphology; Natural enemies; Original Paper; Pest control; Pesticides; Pests; Phylogeny; Plant Pathology; Plant Sciences; Population structure; Species; Vineyards; Wineries & vineyards; Cryptic species; Coccoidea; Vineyard; Vine mealybug
• ISSN: 1612-4758; 1612-4766
• DOI: 10.1007/s10340-022-01532-1

Mealybugs (Hemiptera: Coccomorpha: Pseudococcidae) constitute important agricultural pests that often require control measures. Different mealybug taxa might, however, react differently to natural enemies and pesticides so that appropriate control measures against mealybugs rely heavily on the correct species identification. The mealybug
Planococcus ficus
(Signoret) is the most damaging scale insect infesting vineyards worldwide. Despite its economic impact, the taxonomic status of this mealybug species is still unclear, and recent studies suggest the possibility that
P. ficus
from eastern (i.e., Egypt) and western (i.e., France) Mediterranean regions may correspond in fact to two distinct species. The purpose of this work was to deepen our current knowledge of putative
P. ficus
from eastern Mediterranean using molecular tools and morphological analysis and test for the existence of cryptic species within
P. ficus.
Mealybug samples were collected from Egyptian vineyards to better characterize the genetic diversity and analyze the population structure of putative
P. ficus
along the eastern Mediterranean. We also estimated the phylogenetic relationships among the
P. ficus
complex haplotypes in different vineyard regions worldwide and analyzed the morphological characters of the different clades obtained. Morphological and molecular analyses confirmed the existence of two species:
P. ficus
(Signoret)
s.str.
and
P. vitis
(Niedielski), a species that was previously synonymized as
P. ficus
. These results have direct implications for pest management and could explain the lack of success in previous implementations of biological control programs against this pest in several vineyard regions.