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Population dynamics of Thaumastocoris peregrinus in Eucalyptus plantations of South Africa

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Abstract

Thaumastocoris peregrinus is a sap-sucking insect that infests non-native Eucalyptus plantations in Africa, New Zealand, South America and parts of Southern Europe, in addition to street trees in parts of its native range of Australia. In South Africa, pronounced fluctuations in the population densities have been observed. To characterise spatiotemporal variability in T. peregrinus abundance and the factors that might influence it, we monitored adult population densities at six sites in the main eucalypt growing regions of South Africa. At each site, twenty yellow sticky traps were monitored weekly for 30 months, together with climatic data. We also characterised the influence of temperature on growth and survival experimentally and used this to model how temperature may influence population dynamics. T. peregrinus was present throughout the year at all sites, with annual site-specific peaks in abundance. Peaks occurred during autumn (February–April) for the Pretoria site, summer (November–January) for the Zululand site and spring (August–October) for the Tzaneen, Sabie and Piet Retief monitoring sites. Temperature (both experimental and field-collected), humidity and rainfall were mostly weakly, or not at all, associated with population fluctuations. It is clear that a complex interaction of these and other factors (e.g. host quality) influence population fluctuations in an annual, site specific cycle. The results obtained not only provide insights into the biology of T. peregrinus, but will also be important for future planning of monitoring and control programs using semiochemicals, chemical insecticides or biological control agents.

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Acknowledgments

Members of the Tree Protection Co-operative Programme (TPCP), the Department of Trade and Industry THRIP programme and the National Research Foundation (NRF) are thanked for financial support. We also thank Botha Maree, Sonia du Buisson, Maurits Perold (Hans Merensky), Rhudolf Müller, Tony Winter (Mondi), Denis Oscroft and Tammy Swain (ICFR) and Glen Mitchell and Kholisa Langa (KLF) for their assistance with this trial. We are grateful to Dr. Ilaria Germishuizen of the Institute for Commercial Forestry Research (ICFR) for providing the plantation forestry map (Fig. 1) using the National land-cover database 2000 CSIR/ARC. We also thank the National Zoological Gardens, Pretoria for allowing us to use the Tom Jenkins Eucalyptus plantation for sampling and the South African Weather Service for providing some of the weather data for this study.

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  1. Ryan L. Nadel

    Present address: Institute for Commercial Forestry Research (ICFR), P.O. Box 100281, Scottsville, Pietermaritzburg, 3209, South Africa

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Genetics, Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 0002, South Africa

    Ryan L. Nadel, Michael J. Wingfield & Bernard Slippers

  2. School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Johannesburg, Wits 2050, South Africa

    Mary C. Scholes

  3. Department of Zoology and Entomology, Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 0002, South Africa

    Jeffrey R. Garnas

  4. Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Queensland, and University of the Sunshine Coast, Ecosciences Precinct, GPO Box 267, Brisbane, QLD, 4001, Australia

    Simon A. Lawson

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  1. Ryan L. Nadel
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  2. Michael J. Wingfield
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  5. Simon A. Lawson
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Correspondence to Ryan L. Nadel.

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Communicated by A. Battisti.

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Nadel, R.L., Wingfield, M.J., Scholes, M.C. et al. Population dynamics of Thaumastocoris peregrinus in Eucalyptus plantations of South Africa. J Pest Sci 88, 97–106 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10340-014-0558-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10340-014-0558-6

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