Journal of Threatened Taxa |
www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 May 2020 | 12(8): 15927–15931
ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893
(Print)
doi: https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.5033.12.8.15927-15931
#5033 | Received 27 April 2019 | Final
received 14 February 2020 | Finally accepted 04 May 2020
Occurrence of Fulgoraecia
(= Epiricania) melanoleuca
(Lepidoptera: Epipyropidae) as a parasitoid
of sugarcane lophopid planthopper Pyrilla
perpusilla in Tamil Nadu (India) with brief notes
on its life stages
H. Sankararaman
1 , G. Naveenadevi 2 & S. Manickavasagam 3
1,2,3 Parasitoid Taxonomy and Biocontrol
laboratory, Department of Entomology, Faculty of Agriculture, Annamalai
University, Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu 608002, India.
1 sankararaman05@gmail.com
(corresponding author), 2 nethranavi96@gmail.com, 3 drmanicks2003@yahoo.co.in
Editor: George Mathew, (Ex)
Head, Forest Health Division, Kerala Forest Research Institute, Peechi, India. Date
of publication: 26 May 2020 (online & print)
Citation: Sankararaman,
H., G. Naveenadevi & S. Manickavasagam
(2020). Occurrence of Fulgoraecia
(= Epiricania) melanoleuca
(Lepidoptera: Epipyropidae) as a parasitoid
of sugarcane lophopid planthopper Pyrilla
perpusilla in Tamil Nadu (India) with brief notes
on its life stages. Journal of Threatened Taxa 12(8): 15927–15931. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.5033.12.8.15927-15931
Copyright: © Sankararaman
et al. 2020. Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and
distribution of this article in any medium by providing adequate credit to the
author(s) and the source of publication.
Funding: DST PURSE II, Annamalai
University.
Competing interests: The authors
declare no competing interests.
Acknowledgements: The authors are thankful to Dr. M. Ayyamperumal, Central
Integrated Pest Management Centre, Trichy and PG students 2018-19 for the help
rendered in collection. The partial
financial aid of Government of India, DST PURSE PHASE II (2018-2019) through
Annamalai University is gratefully acknowledged.
Abstract: Seasonal incidence of sugarcane
planthopper Pyrilla perpusilla
Walker (Hemiptera: Lophopidae) and its natural
enemies was investigated at Cuddalore District, Tamil
Nadu during 2018. In this study, Fulgoraecia melanoleuca,
a parasitoid of sugarcane planthopper Pyrilla perpusilla
was observed in large numbers in the field.
Brief notes on its biology, life stages, and extent of parasitism on the
host were studied. Per cent parasitization in nymph and adult was 47.54 and 45.09,
respectively, during the month of August.
High resolution images of all life stages are provided to help in
identification.
Keywords: Biology, Fulgoraecia melanoleuca,
life stages, natural occurrence, Pyrilla perpusilla.
Epipyropidae is a small family of ectoparasitic insects belonging
to the order Lepidoptera. Their larvae
are parasitic on Auchenorrhyncha, especially Fulgoridae and Membracidae
(Pierce 1995). The family comprises 40
species worldwide (Heppner 2008), among which Fulgoraecia
(= Epiricania) melanoleuca
(Fletcher, 1939) is economically very important as an ectoparasitoid
of sugarcane lophopid planthopper Pyrilla
perpusilla.
Fulgoraecia melanoleuca has been
reported from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (Kumarasinghe
& Wratten 1996). It has played a
major role in the management of the sugarcane Pyrilla
epidemics (Gangwar et al. 2008). Although it has been recorded in India in
1939 (Fletcher 1939), its biocontrol potential was recognized only during the Pyrilla epidemics in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar
(Banerjee 1973). In India, incidence of Fulgoraecia has been recorded in Maharashtra (Gholap
& Chandele 1985), Gujarat (Pawar
et al. 1988), Rajasthan (Joshi & Sharma 1989), Odisha (Patnaik et al.
1990), Haryana (Chhillar & Madan 1992; Ahlawat & Kumar 2015), Uttar Pradesh (Tripathi & Katiyar 1998), Punjab (Sanehdeep
et al. 2003), Uttarakhand (Kumar et al. 2008) and Chhattisgarh (Patre 2016). In the
southern states, Fulgoraecia was recorded in
Karnataka (Ansari et al. 1989; Hugar et al. 2002) and
Andhra Pradesh (Rajak & Varma 2001). It has been considered as a potential
biocontrol agent against Pyrilla (Chhillar &
Madan 1992; Pawar et al. 2002) and extensively used
in management of Pyrilla (Pawar
et al. 2002; Seneviratne & Kumarasinghe
2002; Rajak 2007; Pandey et al. 2008). Fulgoraecia melanoleuca has proved its merit in in situ parasitization due to high multiplication rate,
comparatively shorter life cycle, survival under varied agro-climatic
conditions, and good searching ability of its host by larvae (Rajak 2006, 2007).
In this paper, we report the natural occurrence of this parasitoid from Cuddalore
District of Tamil Nadu, India.
Materials and Methods
During our regular field surveys for collection of
parasitic insects from different ecosystems, F. melanoleuca
was collected from sugarcane Saccharum officinarum at Andipalayam
Village of Anna Gramam block (11.77N & 79.55E) of
Cuddalore District, Tamil Nadu during July and August
2018. The number of egg masses, nymphs
and adults of P. perpusilla was
recorded and these life stages were collected every week and they were kept
separately in polythene bags, with the leaves changed as and when necessary and
observations made on parasitoid emergence.
From the egg masses collected, parasitized and unparasitized eggs were segregated by their colour (unparasitized eggs being creamy white and parasitized ones
dark brown to black) and per cent parasitism was worked out by using the
following formula as described by Mishkat &
Khalid (2007). Similarly, per cent
parasitism of nymphs and adults was worked out.
Parasitized nymph (Image 1B) and adults (Image 1C) were differentiated
by presence of white cottony cushion on the back and pleural abdominal region
of the host, respectively.
No. of parasitized eggs/nymphs/adults
Per cent egg/nymph/
adult parasitism = ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
x 100 Total
no. of eggs/nymphs/adults
The various life stages of F. melanoleuca
(Images 1 & 2) were also observed.
Results and Discussion
In our observations during July and August, all the
three stages of Pyrilla recorded higher parasitization during August (34.40%, 47.54%, & 45.09%,
respectively, Table 1) compared to July.
As per earlier reports by Kumar et al. (2008), the accelerating phase of
the Pyrilla starts from early July and the
population continued to increase at a faster rate from the second fortnight
onwards. Accordingly, parasitization also started from July and peaked during
August.
Life history of Fulgoraecia
(= Epiricania) melanoleuca
Eggs (Image 1A):
A trail of dark brown eggs with few silken threads. An adult female lays 240–450 eggs in a
batch. The eggs are laid on the abaxial
or adaxial surface of the leaf, closer to the midrib. On maturity, the eggs turn pale and larvae
hatch out.
Larva
(Images 1B, 1C, 1D): Only three instars are observed. Larvae are covered with whitish powdery
coating (Image 1B). The first instar is
an active wanderer, waits for the host (P. perpusilla)
to approach and clings to the body of the host (Image 1B). Upon attaching to the abdomen of the host, it
starts feeding on its haemolymph, externally (Image 1C). The larvae possess four pairs of abdominal
pro-legs with one pair of anal claspers.
Abdominal pro-legs have crochets (Image 1D) for helping in adhesion to
host. The larva leaves the host before
the pupation, and spins a cocoon on the leaf surface.
Pupa (Images 2A,
2B): The cocoons are milky white, elongated, convex anteriorly
(Image 2A). Pupa is light brown. Male
pupa, short with genital scar in ninth abdominal segment. Female pupa larger (compared to male) with
eighth and ninth abdominal segments fused and genital pore is present on the
fused segment (Kumar et al. 2015). Anus
in tenth abdominal segment of pupa in both the sexes.
Adults
(Images 2C, 2D, 2E): Exhibit sexual dimorphism, differences in
antennae, hindwing coloration and genitalia. Mouthparts reduced in both the
sexes, haustellum absent.
Male: antennae
bipectinate, 13-segmented, having long ciliated branches in each segment (Image
2E). Head with grey and thorax with
black scales. Fore-wings generally with
grey scales entirely, but few specimens with white scales up to discal cell, rest with grey scales. Hind-wings mainly with whitish scales except
costal margin with grey scales (Image 2C).
Female:
antenna short, bipectinate but with prominently short cilia. Head, thorax and wings unicolorous,
covered by grey scales (Image 2D).
All the three stages of Pyrilla
were parasitized. Eggs were parasitized
by undetermined eulophids during July and August up to the tune of 34.40%. No other parasitoid
was observed from any life stage of Pyrilla
during the period of study. Per cent nymphal and adult parasitism by F. melanoleuca
increased from July to August from 30.88 to 47.54 and 34.04 to 45.09,
respectively (Table 1).
The natural parasitization
of Pyrilla by F. melanoleuca
has been reported from various states such as Punjab (Sanehdeep
et al. 2003), Uttarakhand (Kumar et al. 2008), Haryana (Ahlawat
& Kumar 2015), Bihar (Chand et al. 2016), and in southern India from
Karnataka (Hugar et al. 2002). Published records of natural occurrence of
this parasitoid from the state of Tamil Nadu are
scanty but for a mention in the tables of annual reports from Sugarcane
Breeding Institute, Coimbatore (Anonymous 2016, 2017). Here we record its natural occurrence from
Tamil Nadu with per cent parasitization as stated
above, however, the per cent parasitization is
reported to the tune of 50.5 to 78.4 from Haryana (Ahlawat
& Kumar 2015) and 61.4 from Bihar (Chand et al. 2016). Out of 39 parasitized adults collected in the
month of July and August, 31 individuals were females and rest males, from
which it is evident that F. melanoleuca
prefers female Pyrilla than males. Similar reports of epipyropids parasitizing
more of female hosts have been reported on Lophopidae
(Misra & Krishna 1986) and Flatidae
(Supeno 2011; Swierczewski
et al. 2016), however, the exact sex preferential parasitism of F. melanoleuca is not clear and further investigations in
this line are required.
Table 1. Natural parasitism of Pyrilla
perpusilla in various life stages by its natural
enemies.
Life stages
of P. perpusilla collected |
July 2018 |
August 2018 |
||||
TC |
P |
% parasitism |
TC |
P |
% parasitism |
|
Eggs |
183 |
43 |
23.49 |
279 |
96 |
34.40 |
Nymph |
68 |
21 |
30.88 |
61 |
29 |
47.54 |
Adult |
47 |
16 |
34.04 |
51 |
23 |
45.09 |
TC—Total collected | P—Parasitized.
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