Horticultural Studies (HortiS) 2019, Vol 36, Num, 2     (Pages: 146-153)

Thrips (Thysanoptera) species associated with ornamental plants in the Çukurova region of Turkey

Ekrem ATAKAN 1

1 Çukurova Üniversitesi Ziraat Fakültesi Bitki Koruma Bölümü, Adana DOI : 10.16882/derim.2019.518502 Viewed : 1856 - Downloaded : 847 Some thysanopteran (thrips) species are recognized as pests of ornamentals. They cause typical feeding damage by scarring petals, flowers buds or leaves; thus resulting in a decrease at market values of ornamentals. However, thrips composition and importance on ornamental plants in Turkey are not well-understood. Thysanopteran species on ornamentals grown in the parks, home gardens and greenhouses in the Çukurova region of Turkey were investigated during years 2013-2014. Thrips were collected by shaking the plants onto the white tray. Thrips were slide-mounted and identified. In this work, 62 plant species belonging to 35 plant families were investigated for thrips. A total of 1875 thrips adults were extracted from a total 256 plant samples. A total of 23 thysanopteran species belonged to 3 families of order Thysanoptera were determined: Aeolothripidae (6 species), Phlaeothripidae (5 species) and Thripidae (12 species). Haplothrips tamaricinus Priesner was the first time detected in Turkey. Ornamentals belonged to family Asteraceae were more attractive to thrips, bearing relatively high species numbers and high numbers of adult thrips. Majority of thrips were collected from multiflowering ornamentals. Only Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande) was recorded on the ornamentals grown commercially in greenhouses, infesting most of herbaceous plant species with flowers. The most notable species were in descending order F. occidentalis, Neohydathothrips samayunkur (Kudo) and Thrips tabaci Lind. The thrips fauna was dominated by F. occidentalis, this thrips being found in 51.17% of the samples and consisting 81.47 % of the specimens. The second major species N. samayunkur comprised 5.07% of the samples and accounted for 7.72% of the specimens. Keywords : Thysanoptera; Ornamentals; Çukurova region; Turkey