BioControl (2012) 57, 361-374

Nafiseh Poorjavad, Seyed H. Goldansaz, Thijs Machtelinckx, Luc Tirry, Richard Stouthamer and Thomas van Leeuwen (2012)
Iranian Trichogramma: ITS2 DNA characterization and natural Wolbachia infection
BioControl 57 (3), 361-374
Abstract: Egg parasitoids of the genus Trichogramma (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae) are important natural enemies of many lepidopterous pests in agricultural and forest areas. Because the use of indigenous Trichogramma populations/species can significantly increase the biological control efficiency, the characterization of endemic populations and precise species identification is important. In this study, Trichogramma wasps were collected from parasitized eggs of several lepidopteran pests in Northern and Central Iran. Seven Trichogramma species were identified based on the morphology and the nucleotide sequence, size and restriction profile (PCR-RFLP) of the internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) region of the rDNA of T. brassicae Bezdenko, T. cacoeciae Marchal, T. embryophagum Hartig, T. evanescens Westwood, T. euproctidis Girault, T. pintoi Voegelé and T. tshumakovae Sorokina. This is the first report of T. euproctidis in Iran. Additionally, natural populations were surveyed for the prevalence of Wolbachia. Two populations of T. brassicae were found to be infected by a single Wolbachia strain which was identified by using a multi-locus sequencing approach.
(The abstract is excluded from the Creative Commons licence and has been copied with permission by the publisher.)
Link to article at publishers website
Database assignments for author(s): Richard Stouthamer, Thomas Van Leeuwen, Luc Tirry, Nafiseh Poorjavad

Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
biocontrol - natural enemies
Research topic(s) for beneficials or antagonists:
general biology - morphology - evolution
molecular biology - genes

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Pest and/or beneficial records:

Beneficial	Pest/Disease/Weed	Crop/Product	Country	Quarant.
Trichogramma cacaeciae (parasitoid)			Iran
Trichogramma brassicae (parasitoid)			Iran
Trichogramma embryophagum (parasitoid)			Iran
Trichogramma pintoi (parasitoid)			Iran
Trichogramma evanescens (parasitoid)			Iran
Trichogramma euproctidis (parasitoid)			Iran