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Diversity of lepidopteran stemborers and their parasitoids on maize and wild host plants in the rain forest of Kisangani, DR Congo

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Abstract

Lepidopteran stemborers are considered as the most important insect pests of cereal crops in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, limited information exists on stemborers and their parasitoids in the rain forest of the DR Congo. In order to enhance the understanding of the pest ecology, sampling in both cultivated and wild habitats has been recommended as a bottom line to any action aiming at the design of pest management measures. Following this recommendation, a survey was carried out in the rain forest of the DR Congo on maize and wild host plants. We collected eighteen stemborer and one earborer species belonging to 5 families. Five species were found feeding on maize while 18 species fed on wild host plants. Busseola fusca was the commonest species feeding on maize which accounted for 50.1%. At least 20 parasitoids species distributed as 15 species on maize and 16 species in the wild habitats were recovered during this study. Cotesia sesamiae, Enicospilus ruscus and Sturmiopsis parasitica accounted for 99.8% of interactions within parasitoid community. Out of nineteen wild host plants encountered, Pennisetum purpureum and Vossia cuspidata were the most speciose grasses in terms of both parasitoids and stemborers. The implications of such diversity and network structure are discussed.

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Acknowledgements

We are indebted to Boaz Musyoka for the identification of stemborers and parasitoids collected during this study. We thank Mr. Kombozi of the Faculty of Science for the identification of stemborer host plants. Funding was generously provided by the French Institut de Recherche pour le Développement through the Noctuid Stem Borer Biodiversity /icipe project. We thank the Congolese Centre de Surveillance de la Biodiversité for hosting this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Ecology and Management of Animal Resources, Faculty of Sciences and Biodiversity Monitoring Center, University of Kisangani, P.O. Box 2012, Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo

    Onésime Mubenga Kankonda & Benjamin Dudu Akaibe

  2. icipe - African Insect Science for Food and Health, P. O. Box 30772, Nairobi, Kenya

    George Otieno Ong’amo & Bruno-Pierre Le Ru

  3. School of Biological Science, College of Physical and Biological Sciences (Chiromo Campus), University of Nairobi, P.O. Box 30197, Nairobi, Kenya

    George Otieno Ong’amo

  4. IRD/CRNS UMR IRD 247 EGCE, Laboratoire Evolution Génomes Comportement et Ecologie, CNRS, Gif sur Yvette Cedex, France

    Bruno-Pierre Le Ru

  5. Université Paris Sud 11, 91405, Orsay cedex, France

    Bruno-Pierre Le Ru

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  1. Onésime Mubenga Kankonda
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  2. Benjamin Dudu Akaibe
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  3. George Otieno Ong’amo
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  4. Bruno-Pierre Le Ru
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Correspondence to Onésime Mubenga Kankonda.

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Kankonda, O.M., Akaibe, B.D., Ong’amo, G.O. et al. Diversity of lepidopteran stemborers and their parasitoids on maize and wild host plants in the rain forest of Kisangani, DR Congo. Phytoparasitica 45, 57–69 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12600-017-0561-6

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