The red gum lerp psyllid, Glycaspis brimblecombei Moore, has been introduced from Australia into several countries, mostly in the Americas and Europe. It was first discovered in Brazil in 2003 and has continued to spread there. Today, the species is a major pest in eucalypt plantations and often requires expensive control measures. Ecological modelling is used here to estimate the potential spread of G. brimblecombeii, worldwide and particularly in Brazil, based on environmental variables from 502 records of G. brimblecombei around the world. Distribution data from Australia were obtained from the literature and recent field surveys. For the first time, G. brimblecombei is recorded from Western Australia. Through the Openmodeller® program interface, 22 bioclimatic variables were used to test the efficacy of the following models: BIOCLIM, Climate Space Model, Envelope Score, Environmental Distance, GARP with best subsets (new Openmodeller implementation), GARP new Openmodeller implementation, GARP best subsets (Desktop GARP implementation), Niche Mosaic and Support Vector Machines. Among these models, Environmental Distance was the best predictor for the potential distribution of G. brimblecombei in new regions. Temperate areas appeared to be more favourable for G. brimblecombei. Regions with highest probability of occurrence in Brazil, in hierarchical order are: the southern part of the Atlantic Forest, Pampa, Caatinga and Cerrado. This modelling procedure provides a useful tool that should be incorporated in future strategies for pest management in eucalypt plantations.

Morphometric Study of the Genus

The aim of this study was to determine the differences between two Grapholita molesta (Busk) populations by applying infrared spectroscopy. Grapholita molesta populations were collected from different regions within Porto Amazonas, Brazil, and Emilia Romagna, Italy. Eggs, fifth instars, pupae, and adults were examined. Pupae and adults were sexed. A spectrophotometer that was set between 400 and 4000 cm(-1) range was used to perform 32 scans. The spectra obtained were analyzed using partial least squares (PLS), and external validation of the model was conducted with Unscrambler(TM) software, Version 9.1 (CAMO Software AS, Oslo, Norway). The results showed the differences between the populations in all of the analyzed stages of maturation. The pupal stage was the most viable stage for reading the beam spectrum, and it was concluded that IR can separate G. molesta biotypes.

L'étude préliminaire faite sur les ennemis de Setaria sphacelata dans les deux fermes du Centre de recherches de Nioka (Zaïre) a permis d'identifier quelques insectes dont les chenilles parasitent les chaumes. L'incidence de l'attaque des chaumes par les chenilles paraît non négligeable. Quelques oiseaux prédateurs des graines ont également été identifiés.