DISTRIBUTION OF THE GREATER DATE MOTH, ARENIPSES SABELLA HMPS. (LEPIDOPTERA: PYRALIDAE) IN THE EGYPTIAN WESTERN DESERT OASES

Imam, Ahmed; Mansour, Amany; Abdel-Rahman, Abdel-Rahman; Kobisi, Abdel Nasser

doi:10.21608/ejdr.2019.17422.1054

DISTRIBUTION OF THE GREATER DATE MOTH, ARENIPSES SABELLA HMPS. (LEPIDOPTERA: PYRALIDAE) IN THE EGYPTIAN WESTERN DESERT OASES

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Department of Plant Protection, Desert Research Center, Cairo, Egypt

² Department of Plant Protection (Entomology), Desert Research Center, Egypt

³ Department of Plant Protection, Desert Research Center, Matareya, Cairo, Egypt

10.21608/ejdr.2019.17422.1054

Abstract

Greater date moth, ArenipsessabellaHmps. (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), is one of the devastating pests to date palm production in most date palm producing countries. The current study aimed to estimate the distribution and the abundance of A. sabellalarval population and the associated parasitoids across the Egyptian oases along the Egyptian Western Desert over a two years period (2017-2018). In addition, infestation percentages inflicted on both bunch stalk and fallen fruits were recorded in all the examined oases. At the onset of date fruit harvesting season, bunch stalks of 10 fruitful trees and 100 fallen fruits had been sampled and investigated in 60 experimental sites all-over the oases. The obtained findings declared that percentages of infested bunches behaved proportional trend toward the north direction, i.e. the percentage of infested bunches recorded its highest value in the experimental sites of Siwa oasis. The larval abundance across the examined sites was high in the northern oases whereas in the south larval abundance subsided to less than 1%. The more larval abundance percentages in the northern oases were corresponding to the more date fruit infestation. During the context of this study, the most abundant larval parasitoids were Habrobraconhebetorand Phanerotomadentata(Hymenoptera: Braconidae). Population abundance of both hymenopteran wasps showed scarce representation percentages in the inspected fallen fruits with minor domination of Habrobraconpopulation. The distribution percentages of both species exhibited slight increase towards the northern oases. The factors that may be responsible for distribution variance had been discussed.

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