POBLACIÓN DE INSECTOS PLAGA Y PARASITOIDES PERTENECIENTES A Citrus aurantifolia EN MANABÍ, ECUADOR.

Ecuador has reported as main insect pests in lemon: Phyllocnistis citrella Stainton (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae), Aleurothrixus floccosus Maskel (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae), Toxoptera aurantii Boyer de Fonscolombe (Homoptera: Aphididae); natural enemies of these pests, is presented as an alternative for biological control. The objective was to assess the population dynamics of the main lemon pests and their parasitoids in the towns of Colón and Riochico, province of Manabí, Ecuador. The collected samples were analyzed with the R software V3.4.2. Bivariate analyzes were carried out comparing the population of pests and their parasitoids by localities, the assumption of normality was verified with Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests for the total number of individuals of pest populations and the percentage of parasitoids, the independent samples t-test was used and Pearson's correlation analysis was performed for the populations of pests and their parasitoids. Five species of parasitoids were identified in two localities: Encarsia nigricephala (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae) and Eretmocerus sp. (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae) corresponded to A. floccosus; Aphidius sp. (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) with Diaretus sp. (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) were found in T. aurantii; and A. citrícola Logvinovskaya (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae) for P. citrella. There was no correlation between P. citrella and A. citricola in the localities evaluated. For the jurisdiction of Riochico, a significant correlation of -0.706 was reached between A. floccosus and E. nigricephala In the town of Colón, a significant direct correlation of 0.672 was observed between the parasitoids E. nigricephala and Eretmocerus sp. In addition, a significant correlation was obtained between the population of T. aurantii and the parasitoid Diaretus sp., whose value was - 0.624 for the town of Riochico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]