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Native parasitoids associated with Tuta absoluta in the tomato production areas of the Spanish Mediterranean Coast

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Abstract

The tomato borer Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) is an invasive pest that produces significant damage to tomato crops in the Mediterranean area. Although several species of predatory bugs are successfully being used for biological control of the pest, little is known about the parasitoids that are able to exploit T. absoluta as a host. With the aim of better understanding parasitoid species richness of T. absoluta along the Mediterranean Spanish Coast, we conducted an extensive survey to determine distribution, host plants and habitats where parasitoids are present. Our results indicated that egg parasitoids are naturally scarce but that the species richness of larval/pupal parasitoids is high and includes 20 different species. Seven of these had not been previously reported as T. absoluta parasitoids. The most frequent parasitoid species recovered were Necremnus sp. nr. artynes (Walker), Stenomesius cf. japonicus (Ashmead) and Neochrysocharis formosa (Westwood) (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae).

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Marco Gebiola and Umberto Bernardo (Institute for Plant Protection, Napoli, Italy), Richard Askew (United Kingdom), Cornelius van Achterberg (National Museum of Natural History, Leiden, Netherlands) and Mark Shaw (National Museums of Scotland, United Kingdom) for the revision of some species of Eulophidae, Braconidae and Microgastrinae respectively; also Jesus Selfa (Universidad de Valencia, Spain) and Santiago Bordera (Universidad de Alicante, Spain) for the verification of Ichneumonidae parasitoids. We are also grateful to Ramon Berruezo and Clara Balaguer for their technical assistance, to TRAGSA (Spain) for providing T. absoluta-infested samples from the Comunitat Valenciana and to Agnès Ardanuy for assistance with statistical analysis. Authors thank two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. This work has been funded by the Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria (INIACC09-048), the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (AGL 2010-18811), the Conselleria d’Agricultura, Pesca i Alimentació de la Generalitat Valenciana, the Conselleria d’Agricultura, Ramaderia, Pesca, Alimentació i Medi Natural de la Generalitat de Catalunya and the Consejería de Agricultura y Pesca de la Junta de Andalucía (IFAPA - IDF-09-06 Feder).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Entomology, Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentària (IRTA), Ctra. de Cabrils, km 2, 08348, Cabrils, Barcelona, Spain

    Rosa Gabarra, Judit Arnó & Jordi Riudavets

  2. Instituto de Investigación y Formación Agraria y Pesquera (IFAPA), Camino de San Nicolás, nº1, 04745, La Mojonera, Almería, Spain

    Lidia Lara & María del Mar Téllez

  3. Departamento de Entomología, Centro de Protección Vegetal y Biotecnología, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias (IVIA), Ctra. Moncada-Náquera, km 4.5, 46113, Moncada, Valencia, Spain

    María Jesús Verdú, Francisco Beitia, Alberto Urbaneja & Oscar Mollá

  4. C. Lleida, 36. Torres de Segre, 25170, Lleida, Spain

    Antoni Ribes

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  1. Rosa Gabarra
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  2. Judit Arnó
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  3. Lidia Lara
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  6. Francisco Beitia
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  7. Alberto Urbaneja
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  9. Oscar Mollá
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  10. Jordi Riudavets
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Correspondence to Judit Arnó.

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Gabarra, R., Arnó, J., Lara, L. et al. Native parasitoids associated with Tuta absoluta in the tomato production areas of the Spanish Mediterranean Coast. BioControl 59, 45–54 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10526-013-9545-8

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