”Unmasking the Villain”: Integrative Taxonomy Reveals the Real Identity of the Key Pest (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) of Peanuts (Arachis hypogaea L.) in South America

Abstract

The peanut thrips, Enneothrips enigmaticus sp. n., is the key pest of Arachis hypogaea L. in South America, where it can cause yield losses of up to 85%. This species has historically been identified as Enneothrips flavens, but access to the holotype of this species and freshly collected material from southeastern and northern Brazil revealed that specimens commonly collected on peanut crops are not conspecific with E. flavens. Biological, molecular, and morphological assessments were carried out and led to the conclusion that the key pest of A. hypogaea belongs to a previously undescribed species: Enneothrips enigmaticus sp. n.

First record of Caliothrips phaseoli (Hood, 1912) (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) on Arachis spp. (Fabaceae) in Brazil

“…Until now, there was only a record of E. enigmaticus associated with forage peanuts in Acre (Fazolin et al, 2015), which is considered the main pest of the peanut plants, A. hypogaea in Brazil (Lima et al, 2022).…”

“…Twenty rectangular pots were randomly inspected, and individuals were collected with a fine brush, counted, and placed in a bottle containing ethyl alcohol (70 %). Subsequently, the specimens were slide-mounted on glass slides and sealed with a cover slip in mounting medium following the methodology proposed by Mound and Marullo (1996) and identified based on Lima et al (2020Lima et al ( , 2022. Voucher specimens were deposited in the Natural History Collection of the Federal University of Piauí (CHNUFPI), municipality of Floriano, State of Piauí, Brazil.…”

“…In this context, entomological evaluation is necessary for the launch 2/3 of new Arachis cultivars, as it aims to understand the associated arthropods, as well as their population and damage levels (Fazolin et al, 2011) Currently, the economically important arthropods for forage peanuts recorded in the Brazilian state of Acre are Oligonychus gossypii (Zacher, 1921), Mononychelus planki (McGregor, 1950), Tetranychus urticae Koch, 1836, Tetranychus ogmophallos Ferreira & Flechtmann, 1997, Brevipalpus phoenicis (Geijskes, 1939) (Acari: Tenuipalpidae), Cerotoma arcuata tingomariana Bechyné, Diabrotica speciosa (Germar, 1824) (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), Dysmicoccus sp. (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae), Gargaphia paula Drake & Ruhoff, 1965 (Hemiptera: Tingidae), and Enneothrips enigmaticus Lima, Alencar, Nanini, Michelotto & Corrêa, 2022 (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) (Fazolin et al, 2011(Fazolin et al, , 2015Guidoti et al, 2014;Lima et al, 2022). The objective of this study was to make the first record of the association of a species of thrips in forage peanut accessions in Brazil.…”

First record of Caliothrips phaseoli Hood, 1912 (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) causing damage to forage grasses

“…Many Thysanoptera groups are associated with forages. Most of them, such as Bregmatothrips Hood, 1912, Chirothrips Haliday, 1836and Plesiothrips Hood, 1915, are associated with Poaceae species (Mound 2011;Nakahara & Footit 2012;Mound et al 2016), and a few have been reported as occurring in or damaging legume pastures, such as Enneothrips enigmaticus Lima et al, 2022 (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) in Arachis pintoi Krapov & W.C. Gregory (Fazolin et al 2015;Lima et al 2022).…”

IInfluence of cropping systems on insect predators diversity and their trophic relationships

“…The most commonly used species identification is by morphology, but molecular identification has become an ally with the barcode . Many species that were considered to be identical, with the barcode it was possible to identify that the genetic distance between these individuals was sufficient to classify them as different species (Bickford et al, 2007;Ashfaq & Hebert, 2016;Lima et al, 2022).…”