An annotated checklist of the tribe Mirini (Miridae: Mirinae) recorded on the Korean peninsula is presented. A total of 113 species, including newly described and newly recorded species are recognized. Three new species, Apolygus hwasoonanus Oh, Yasunaga & Lee, sp. n., A. seonheulensis Oh, Yasunaga & Lee, sp. n. and Stenotus penniseticola Oh, Yasunaga & Lee, sp. n., are described. Eight species, Apolygus adustus (Jakovlev, 1876), Charagochilus (Charagochilus) longicornis Reuter, 1885, C. (C.) pallidicollis Zheng, 1990, Pinalitopsis rhodopotnia Yasunaga, Schwartz & Chérot, 2002, Philostephanus tibialis (Lu & Zheng, 1998), Rhabdomiris striatellus (Fabricius, 1794), Yamatolygus insulanus Yasunaga, 1992 and Y. pilosus Yasunaga, 1992 are reported for the first time from the Korean peninsula. Korean specimens previously identified as Eurystylus luteus Hsaio, 1941 are correctly recognized as E. sauteri Poppius, 1915. Three new synonyms are proposed: Apolygus atriclavus Kim & Jung, 2016 syn. n. of A. xanthomelas Yasunaga & Yasunaga, 2000, A. josifovi Kim & Jung, 2016 syn. n. of A. subpulchellus (Kerzhner, 1988) and Capsus koreanus Kim & Jung, 2015 syn. n. of C. wagneri Remane, 1950. Dorsal habitus photographs of the newly described or recorded species are presented along with figures of the genitalia of the new species. Keys to Korean genera and to species of Apolygus and Stenotus are provided. Zoogeography of the East Asian Mirini fauna is also discussed., Minsuk Oh, Tomohide Yasunaga, Ram Keshari Duwal, Seunghwan Lee., and Obsahuje bibliografii
The partial consumption of prey refers to when a predator does not consume all the digestible biomass of an animal it has killed. The frequency of partial consumption of prey by the polyphagous predator Macrolophus pygmaeus (Hemiptera: Miridae) was recorded for different species of prey and prey population structures, in single and mixed prey species patches. All the instars of the aphid, Aphis gossypii, were provided as prey alone or together with Myzus persicae or Macrosiphum euphorbiae. Numbers killed were determined when equal (10 nymphs of each instar, 40 in total) or unequal numbers (higher numbers of young nymphs but again 40 in total) of nymphs were placed on an eggplant leaf in a plastic Petri dish. In each dish a single 5th instar nymph of the predator was introduced and the numbers killed and numbers of partially consumed aphids were recorded after 24h, at 25 ± 1°C. The numbers of A. gossypii killed were higher than those of the other species of prey used. The frequency of partially consumed prey was highest when A. gossypii was offered alone in equal numbers of each instar, followed by when A. gossypii was provided together with M. persicae in unequal numbers of instars (23.6% and 11.2%, of the total mortality, respectively). Killed but not consumed prey was also recorded, at frequencies that reached 10.7% of the total mortality when A. gossypii was provided alone in equal numbers of each instar. For M. persicae and M. euphorbiae, these percentages were significantly lower. The higher frequency of this behaviour when A. gossypii was the prey may be related to its lower nutritional quality for the predator. The effect of prey instar was not significant. These results indicate that in determining the numbers killed by a predator, partially consumed prey may make up a significant part of the total kill and thus should be taken into consideration., Dionyssios Lykouressis, Dionyssios Perdikis, Ioannis Mandarakas., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Lygus lineolaris (Palisot de Beauvois, 1818) (tarnished plant bug) is a serious pest of cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) in the Delta region as compared to cotton in the Hills region of the state of Mississippi in USA. The reason for this is unclear but it was hypothesized that the plant cell wall degrading polygalacturonase enzyme system in the salivary glands of L. lineolaris from the Delta could be better adapted for cotton, which is grown more predominantly in the Delta region than in the Hills region. Expression analysis of three primary polygalacturonase genes (LlPG1, LlPG2 and LlPG3) was conducted in laboratory reared and field collected populations of L. lineolaris. Assay of polygalacturonase enzyme activity was also conducted to compare wild collected populations. Initial laboratory and field data revealed gene expression differences in sex, age, region, and host plant which guided the direction of our subsequent study during 2013 and 2014. Based on the results of this study, we propose that the three genes studied may not be reflective of the entire polygalacturonase enzyme system and may not be solely responsible for the observed adaptation of L. lineolaris to cotton in the Delta region than in the Hills region. Analyses also revealed that the expression of the three targeted polygalacturonase genes was affected by the host plant from which the insects were collected and that adults had higher polygalacturonase expression than nymphs. Taken together, our results provide strong evidence for developmental stage specific and host plant based change in expression of PG genes in the salivary glands of L. lineolaris. This, however, was not reflected in total polygalacturonase enzyme activity which was not significantly different between regions, hosts, sex, or developmental stage., Daniel Fleming, Natraj Krishnan, Fred Musser., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Macrolophus pygmaeus (Hemiptera: Miridae) is an important predator of pests of horticultural crops and here its ability as a predator of Acyrthosiphon pisum (Hemiptera: Aphididae) is addressed for the first time. The percentage predation of the different aphid instars and the number partially consumed were studied. Our results, obtained using choice and no-choice tests, revealed that M. pygmaeus caught and consumed more young than later instars of A. pisum, which confirms results of previous studies using other species of aphids. We also studied the interactions between predators (male/female) foraging in the same patch. When the prey/predator ratio is kept constant at 10 : 1 the average percentage of aphids completely consumed by individual females or males does not change with increase in the number of foraging predators. However, the number of partially consumed aphids decreased when females shared the same patch. In contrast, there was an increase in the number of aphids partially consumed when two males shared the same patch. The results were discussed in terms of potential predator foraging strategies since intraspecific competition is a key factor modulating the dynamics of prey-predator systems., Juliana Durán Prieto, Vincenzo Trotta, Paolo Fanti, Cristina Castañé, Donatella Battaglia., and Obsahuje bibliografii