Silva Balcanica 25(2): 31-36, doi: 10.3897/silvabalcanica.25.e132142

New parasitoids of Corythucha arcuata (Say) (Hemiptera: Tingidae) in Bulgaria

Georgi Georgiev^‡, Peter Boyadzhiev^§, Margarita Georgieva^‡, Plamen Mirchev^‡, Mihail Kechev^‡, Sevdalin Belilov^‡, Boriana Katinova^‡

‡ Forest Research Institute, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria§ University of Plovdiv ‘Paisii Hilendarski’, Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Corresponding author: Georgi Georgiev ( ggeorgiev.fri@gmail.com )

Academic editor: Ivailo Markoff

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Citation: Georgiev G, Boyadzhiev P, Georgieva M, Mirchev P, Kechev M, Belilov S, Katinova B (2024) New parasitoids of Corythucha arcuata (Say) (Hemiptera: Tingidae) in Bulgaria. Silva Balcanica 25(2): 31-36. https://doi.org/10.3897/silvabalcanica.25.e132142

Abstract

During the period 2019-2020, parasitoids of invasive oak lace bug (Corythucha arcuata) were studied in Bulgaria. Biological material (larvae of C. arcuata) was collected from European oak (Quercus robur) or Austrian oak (Quercus cerris) in five localities of the country. Five eulophid specimens (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) were reared from the host larvae: Tamarixia pubescens, Elasmus sp., Minotetrastichus sp., Pnigalio sp. and Sympiesis sp. The impact of the parasitoids on the host number was very low (0.1-0.3%). The present records in Bulgaria are the first documented case of adaptation of native parasitoids to the host in the newly occupied areas in Europe and Asia.

Keywords

Oak lace bug, parasitoids, Eulophidae, Tamarixia pubescens, Bulgaria