Abstract. Lestari P, Budiarti A, Fitriana Y, Susilo FX, Swibawa IG, Sudarsono H, Suharjo R, Hariri AM, Purnomo, Nuryasin, Solikhin, Wibowo L, Jumari, Hartaman M. 2020. Identification and genetic diversity of Spodoptera frugiperda in Lampung Province, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 21: 1670-1677. Spodoptera frugiperda is one of the most recent invasive and destructive insect pest in Indonesia. Recently, it has been reported that this pest was found in some cornfield areas in Sumatera, including Lampung. This research was performed to confirm the presence of S. frugiperda in Lampung Province by collecting and identifying larvae of Spodoptera found in the field as well as investigation on the genetic diversity of the established populations and to observe the damage caused by this pest on cornfields in the Lampung Province. The observation was conducted from February-April 2019 at four locations (districts) representing corn-producing areas in Lampung, namely Lampung Selatan, Lampung Timur, Pesawaran and Pringsewu, each location comprising five plots. The plot is a cornfield with plants aged 14-40 days after planting. Twenty plants were randomly chosen in every plot as plant samples to collect the Spodoptera larvae and to calculate the absolute plant damage caused by the larvae. The absolute plant damage was analyzed by dividing the attacked plants with total plants observed and multiply by 100%. Identification of the Spodoptera larvae was performed based on morphological characters and molecular techniques using sequence analysis of Cytochrome c Oxidase subunit I (COI) gene. The result confirmed that the larvae found in the cornfield in Lampung were S. frugiperda. There was no nucleotides variation in the sequence of COI gene among S. frugiperda found in Lampung Province (Lampung Selatan, Lampung Timur, Pesawaran and Pringsewu) as well as S. frugiperda that was found in corn from foreign countries. The absolute plant damage caused by this pest in the four districts of Lampung was in the range of 26.50-70%.

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The White-Bellied Planthopper (Hemiptera: Delphacidae) Infesting Corn Plants in South Lampung, Indonesia. Corn plants in South Lampung were infested by newly-found delphacid planthoppers. The planthopper specimens were collected from heavily-infested corn fields in Natar area, South Lampung. We identified the specimens as the white-bellied planthopper Stenocranus pacificus Kirkaldy (Hemiptera: Delphacidae), and reported their field population abundance.

To minimize the degradation of soil organic matter (SOM) content in conventional sugarcane cropping, it is important to understand how the fungal community contributes to SOM dynamics during the decomposition of sugarcane leaf litter. However, our knowledge of fungal diversity in tropical agroecosystems is currently limited. Thus, we determined the fungal community structure on decomposing sugarcane leaf litter and their response to different soil management systems using the internal transcribed spacer region 1 (ITS1) amplicon sequencing method afforded by Ion Torrent Personal Genome Machine (PGM). The results indicate that no-tillage had positive effects on the relative abundance of Zygomycota and of some taxa that may prefer a moist environment over conventional tillage, whereas bagasse mulching decreased the richness of operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and had positive effect on the relative abundance of slow-growing taxa, which may prefer poor nutrient substrates. Furthermore, a combination of no-tillage and bagasse mulching increased the abundance of unique OTUs. We suggest that the alteration of fungal communities through the changes in soil management practices produces an effect on litter decomposition.