First record of Apanteles hemara (N.) on Leucinodes orbonalis Guenée and biodiversity of Hymenoptera parasitoids on Brinjal

Hager M M Saleh; Areej A Al-Khalaf; Maha Abdullah Alwaili; Debjani Dey

doi:10.7717/peerj.16870

First record of Apanteles hemara (N.) on Leucinodes orbonalis Guenée and biodiversity of Hymenoptera parasitoids on Brinjal

PeerJ. 2024 Mar 29:12:e16870. doi: 10.7717/peerj.16870. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Hager M M Saleh^{1

2}, Areej A Al-Khalaf³, Maha Abdullah Alwaili³, Debjani Dey¹

Affiliations

¹ National Pusa Collection, Division of Entomology, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India.
² Plant Protection Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Fayoum University, Fayoum, Egypt.
³ Biology Department, Faculty of Science, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

The brinjal fruit and shoot borer (BFSB), Leucinodes orbonalis Guenée (Lepidoptera: Crambidae), is a very detrimental pest that causes significant economic losses to brinjal crop worldwide. Infested brinjal fruits were collected from vegetable fields located at the ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (ICAR-IARI), New Delhi, India, during two consecutive seasons (2021-2022). The larvae of the pest were brought to the laboratory and reared under controlled conditions of 25 ± 0.5 °C and 70 ± 5% relative humidity, for the emergence of parasitoids. In addition, the survey of Hymenoptera parasitoids in brinjal was conducted utilizing a sweep net and yellow pan trap over the course of two seasons. The results reveal that five parasitoid species were emerged from L. orbonalis viz., Apanteles hemara Nixon, 1965, Bracon greeni Ashmead 1896 (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), Goryphus nursei (Cameron, 1907), Trathala flavoorbitalis (Cameron, 1907) (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) and Spalangia gemina Boucek 1963 (Hymenoptera: Spalangiidae). Out of these, A. hemara and S. gemina were documented as new occurrences in Delhi. Additionally, A. hemara was recorded for the first time as a parasite on L. orbonalis. Trathala flavoorbitalis was observed during both seasons and exhibited higher parasitism reaching 15.55% and 18.46% in July and August 2022, respectively. However, the average parasitism (%) recorded by A. hemara, B. greeni, G. nursei, T. flavoorbitalis and S. gemina was 3.10%, 1.76%, 1.10%, 9.28% and 1.20% respectively. Furthermore, the findings showed a significant (p ≤ 0.01) strongly positive correlation between fruit infestation (%) by L. orbonalis and parasitism (%). The survey indicates the presence of a broad group (19 families and 60 species) of Hymenoptera parasitoids in the brinjal crop ecosystem in Delhi which could be valuable in biological control. In light of these results, this study revealed that A. hemara and other parasitoids identified in this study alongside T. flavoorbitalis would be ideal biocontrol agents within the integrated pest management (IPM) program of BFSB in Delhi.

Keywords: Bracon greeni; Brinjal; Delhi; Leucinodes orbonalis; Parasitoids; Survey; Trathala flavoorbitalis.

MeSH terms

Animals
Biodiversity
Ecosystem
Humans
Hymenoptera*
Iron-Dextran Complex
Moths* / parasitology
Solanum melongena* / parasitology

Substances

Iron-Dextran Complex

Grants and funding

The ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Division of Entomology, provided necessary research facilities. This work was supported by Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, through the University Researchers Supporting Project (no. PNURSP2023R37). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.