Wednesday 20 May 2015

Western Flower Thrips reported in India.


Thrips (the word is both singular and plural),Thripidae, are very small Insects with wings reduced to feathery growths (though this is sufficient to support them in flying due to their small size). They feed by sucking fluids from plants, and as such are important agricultural pests, both for their ability to damage plants directly and their ability to act as a vector for plant pathogens.

In a paper published in the journal Halteres on 5 March 2015, Kaomud Tyagi and Vikas Kumar of the Centre for DNA Taxonomy at the Zoological Survey of India describe the discovery of four specimens of the Western Flower Thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis, from a Tomato plantation at Bangalore in Karnataka State.

Western Flower Thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis, female specimen in dorsal view. Tyagi& Kumar (2015).

The Western Flower Thrips is known to be a vector of Tospoviruses, a group of highly pathogenic plant viruses which cause a number of serious crop diseases. To date fourteen species of Thrips have been demonstrated to carry Topoviruses, and the Western Flower Thrips is known to carry at least five different members of the group, including the Tomato spotted wilt virus, which is estimated to have caused over a billion dollars worth of damage to Tomato crops around the globe in the early 1990s. To make matters worse, unlike many Insects which feed by sucking fluids from plants, the Western Flower Thripsis capable of feeding from a wide variety of plants, and therefore very hard to eradicate once it becomes established as it quickly builds up a reserve population in wild plants unaffected by eradication measures in crop fields. As such the discovery of the species in India is a matter of serious concern.

See also….

http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/fossil-thrips-from-early-eocene-of.htmlFossil Thrips from the Early Eocene of France.                                                                           Thrips (the term is both singular and plural) are tiny (usually less than 1 mm) Insects related to Lice and True Bugs. They have wings, but are poor flyers, and feed by sucking fluids from plant or animal hosts. Thrips do not undergo metamorphosis, the young...
 
http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/three-new-species-of-thrips-from-japan.htmlThree new species of Thrips from Japan, Malaysia and Australia.                                    Thrips (the term is both singular and plural) are tiny (usually less than 1 mm) Insects related to Lice and True Bugs. They have wings, but are poor flyers, and feed by sucking fluids from plant or animal hosts. Thrips do not undergo metamorphosis, the young are essentially smaller, non-reproducing versions of...
http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/four-new-species-of-thrips-from-china.htmlFour new species of Thrips from China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Australia.                                                                  Thrips (the term is both singular and plural) are tiny (usually less than 1 mm) Insects related to Lice and True Bugs. They have wings, but are poor flyers...

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