Four species of Anagrus (A. breviphragma Soyka, A. incarnatus Haliday, A. fennicus Soyka and A. obscurus Foerster sensu Soyka), that live on Carex riparia Curtis (Cyperaceae) in uncultivated areas along the Po river in the Piacenza province in Italy were analysed using RAPD markers in order to investigate their genetic relationships. High levels of RAPD polymorphism were found in the genus Anagrus, which permitted the fingerprinting of the four species. Analysis of average genetic similarities within species and comparison with average values between species confirms that A. breviphragma, A. incarnatus, A. fennicus and A. obscurus represent four genetically distinct species. A dendrogram constructed from molecular data of single families clearly clustered the four species in different groups, their mutual position reflecting morphological and biological observations., Elisabetta Chiappini, Lucia Soressi, Corrado Fogher, Marco Zanirato, and Lit
We describe here the in vitro rearing of Anagrus breviphragma Soyka, an egg parasitoid of Cicadella viridis (Linnaeus), from the second instar larva to the adult stage. Three media, containing mainly either a commercial tissue culture medium (IPL-41), skimmed milk or veal homogenate, were tested. Larval development occurred on all the diets but few larvae reached the pupal stage on the diets containing skimmed milk or veal homogenate. On the tissue culture medium, pharate adults, albeit malformed, developed. Supplementing the tissue culture medium-based diet with chicken egg yolk alone, or combined with yeast extract, further improved parasitoid development. The addition of both egg yolk and yeast extract resulted in twelve out of twenty larvae reaching the adult stage, of which only four females emerged.