Search results for "Spermophilus"
showing 3 items of 3 documents
DNA-Based Identification of Larvae Offers Insights into the Elusive Lifestyles of Native Olive Seed Wasps in South Africa
2020
Wild and cultivated olives in the Western Cape of South Africa are direct or indirect hosts to a high diversity of Braconidae and Chalcidoidea wasps. Olive-associated Braconidae are known to parasitise the larvae of Bactrocera oleae (Rossi), and probably also Bactrocera biguttula (Bezzi). The lifestyle of olive-associated Chalcidoidea is not fully understood, and may include phytophagous, parasitoid and hyperparasitoid species. Some chalcids could represent olive seed wasps (OSW), a generic term that designates the seed feeders responsible for losses in commercial olive production. In order to obtain direct DNA-based evidence for the lifestyle of four putative OSW – Eupelmus spermophilus Si…
Eupelmus spermophilus Silvestri (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea), an Indigenous Olive Seed Wasp Potentially Harmful to Olive Growing in the Western Cape, …
2021
The objectives of this study were the specific taxonomic confirmation of the main olive seed wasp (OSW) attacking commercial olives in the Western Cape, to investigate monitoring methods and seasonal occurrence of OSW, to determine the potential economic damage of infestations, and to ascertain the geographic distribution of OSW in the regions where olives are cultivated in the Western Cape. Morphological and molecular methods were used to identify all the species obtained from cultivated olives at two trial sites near Stellenbosch and Agter-Paarl. Eupelmus spermophilus Silvestri (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea) was by far the most frequent and widespread olive seed wasp. Monitoring with yellow …
Olive seed wasps (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea), potentially important pests of olive crops in the Western Cape of South Africa
2019
Most phytophagous insects on cultivated olives, Olea europaea L. subsp. europaea var. europaea, in South Africa are native and come from the local wild olive tree, Olea europaea subsp. cuspidata. This paper presents the first qualitative and comparative data regarding the phytophagous seed wasps on cultivated and wild olives. From 2009 to 2012, 62 random fruit samples were collected from untreated cultivated olive trees and 53 random fruit samples from wild olives at 13 different localities in the Western Cape. During spring 2013 and summer 2014, olives collected from the trees were dissected with a scalpel (when the pit was still soft) in search of seed wasp eggs and young larvae or cut wi…