2021 Volume 68 Issue 1 Pages 62-65
The parasitoid Encarsia smithi found in Japan comprises two phylogenetic groups. Type I was introduced from China in 1925 to control the orange spiny whitefly, Aleurocanthus spiniferus, in citrus orchards. The other phylogroup, type II, was accidentally introduced in ca. 2004, and has recently been found in tea fields infested with the tea spiny whitefly, A. camelliae. To clarify ecological characteristics of the two groups on the host A. camelliae, we developed the rearing experiment in a laboratory scale by using A. camelliae-infested tea seedlings. Although there was no statistically significant difference, we observed that type II tended to have higher number of offspring than type I, which was opposite to the result when using A. spiniferus-infested citrus seedlings in our previous study. Emergence pattern of each group, on the other hand, was similar to that in the previous study; females emerged earlier than males in type I, while females and males emerged almost at the same time in type II.
