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Parasitoid wasps from the Aphelinidae family (Hymenoptera) are important control agents of Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius, 1889) cryptic species, both through reproduction and feeding processes. Identifying native parasitoid species within agricultural systems affected by Bemisia whitefly species is the first step to developing guidelines for the creation and release of biological control agents aiming at this highly damaging pest species complex. Taxonomic and phylogenetic analyses based on morphological and molecular characters, respectively, confirmed the occurrence of Encarsia formosa (Gahan, 1924) in greenhouse tomatoes from Santa Maria, Encarsia porteri (Mercet, 1928) in open-field soybean from Santa Maria, and Eretmocerus mundus Mercet, 1931 in greenhouse tomatoes from São José do Hortêncio, all within Rio Grande do Sul state (South Brazil). This is the first report of En. formosa, En. porteri and Er. mundus parasitising B. tabaci in South Brazil, and the first En. porteri partial mtCOI gene sequence being reported and characterised. The high temperature inside the tomato greenhouses can be a possible cause for the predominance of Er. mundus in São José do Hortêncio, and sex ratios in the surveyed populations point to female and male prevalence within Encarsia and Eretmocerus genera, respectively. The combined use of taxonomic and molecular characterisation highlights the importance of combining both morphological and molecular approaches in the assessment of previously unidentified whitefly parasitoids., (© 2021. Sociedade Entomológica do Brasil.) more...

To control phytophagous mites on soybean crops in an economically viable way, it is necessary to quantify the occurrence of the mites on the leaflets. Estimating the number of mites cm(-2) on leaflets is more difficult because of their irregular distribution on the leaflet surface. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the count-area/leaflet and the number of soybean leaflets to quantify the mites. One hundred infested plants were randomly collected. One leaflet was removed from each plant and divided into 32 sections (1.0 cm(2) per section), arranged in four columns and eight rows, to count the mites (adults, nymphs and eggs). The ideal count-area size per leaflet (Xo) was estimated by the maximum curvature of the coefficient of variation method for each of the 100 leaflets. For a count-area of Xo size, we obtained the number of mites cm(-2) per leaflet and, using the bootstrap resampling method, we estimated the point and interval averages as well as the sample size for a pre-established error. We suggest that the determination of the evaluated area size on each soybean leaflet (20 cm(2) in this case) and the bootstrap resampling estimate of the appropriate number of leaflets (12 in this case) for a bootstrap confidence interval of four mites (adults + nymphs) cm(-2) is sufficient to standardize the sampling-procedures for quantifying mites on soybean leaflets. more...