PROC. ENTOMOL. SOC. WASH. 103(3), 2001, pp. 636-654 SYSTEMATICS AND BIOLOGY OF A NEW, POLYPHAGOUS SPECIES OF MARMARA (LEPIDOPTERA: GRACILLARIIDAE) INFESTING GRAPEFRUIT IN THE SOUTHWESTERN UNITED STATES Marta Guillen, Donald R. Davis, and John M. Heraty (MG, JMH) Department of Entomology, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, U.S.A. (e-mail:
[email protected]); (DRD) Department of Systematic Biology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560-0127, U.S. A Abstract. — A new species of Marmara (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae), M. gulosa Guillen and Davis, from the southwestern United States, is described and illustrated. This species, the citrus peelminer, which was previously misidentified as M. salictella Clemens, is a cyclical pest in xeric areas of California and Arizona. Larvae mine the surface of citrus fruits, with grapefruit, Citrus paradisi Macfadyen, as a preferred host, and with oleander, Nerium oleander L., cotton, Gossypium hirsutum L., and avocado, Persea americana Mill., as alternate hosts. Salix lasiolepis Benth is probably the primary host. Based on two nuclear gene regions, 28S-D2 and ITS2, almost no genetic differences were found between populations of peelminer on oleander and grapefruit (0-0.4%), whereas both populations had a 6.8-9.2% divergence from an undescribed, sympatric species of Mar-mara on tree tobacco. Thus at the morphological and genetic level the populations on oleander and grapefruit appear to be panmictic. On grapefruit in the laboratory, females laid 48.5 ± 7.2 eggs and developmental time (egg-adult) at 26°C was 28.8 ± 0.4 days. Key Words: citrus, cotton, avocado, oleander, willow, Marmara, peelminer, biology, hy-permetamorphosis, morphology, 28S-D2, ITS2 The citrus peelminer has been reported and Florida (H. Browning, Manners, in mining the peel of citrus fruits in the south-litt.), although no adults from citrus col-western United States since the early part lected outside of California have been ex-of the twentieth century (Vinal 1917; Essig amined. Citrus fruit mines from Texas and 1926; Lockwood 1933; Quayle 1938; Wog-Florida could also be the result of the citrus lum 1948; Anonymous 1960; Atkins 1961, leafminer, Phyllocnistis citrella Stainton 1971; Chong and La Rosa 1986; Reeves (Gracillariidae), which has become well es-1995; Gibson et al. 1997). The earliest tablished along the southern United States known collection of this insect consists of and through much of the Neotropical citrus a mined orange {Citrus sinensis Osbeck) growing regions after 1993, and now in peel collected 23 July 1915 at Pasadena, California (Heppner 1993, 1995; Heppner California (USNM). It has been reported as and Dixon 1995; Hoy and Nguyen 1997; an economic pest in California (Atkins JMH unpublished). Larvae of the citrus 1961, 1971; Reeves 1995), Arizona (Anon-peelminer form long serpentine mines (Fig. ymous 1960, Gibson et al. 1997) and Cuba 1) that disfigure the epidermal surface of (Chong and La Rosa 1986). It also reput-the fruit (Atkins 1961), and under heavy in-edly occurs in very low numbers in Texas festations, the entire fruit surface may be-
Specimen codes extracted from OCR text.
BioStor
