Thysanoptera Phlaeothripidae as pests

The thrips that is damaging Myoporum is a member of the Phlaeothripidae, one of the two major families of Thysanoptera . In general, pest thrips belong to the second major family, the Thripidae (Mound, 2005a), including all of the known tospovirus vectors (Mound, 1996b). In contrast, many species of Phlaeothripidae are fungus-feeders, on dead twigs, dead leaves and in leaf litter (Morse & Hoddle, 2006), with flower-feeding occurring among a smaller group of species, mostly Holarctic members of the genus Haplothrips (Mound & Minaei, in press). A few phlaeothripids are predatory, but the species of the other major group in this family feed on green leaves, some inducing galls (Mound, 1994). These leaf-feeding Phlaeothripidae are often hostspecific (Mound, 2005a), thus greatly limiting their potential to be general crop pests.

One pest phlaeothripid, the Cuban laurel thrips, Gynaikothrips ficorum (Marchal), is well known around the world inducing leaf-galls on cultivated Ficus microcarpa (Mound et al., 1996; Boyd & Held, 2006). In south eastern Asia, Piper species, both wild and cultivated, often exhibit leaf-curl damage due to Liothrips piperinus Priesner and related species (Ananthakrishnan & Raman, 1989). Similarly, Liothrips vaneeckei Priesner is widespread as a minor pest on lily bulbs (Malipatil et al., 2002), and Liothrips adisi zur Strassen damages the leaves of Paullinia cupana, the Brazilian tree from which the drink Guarana is produced (zur Strassen, 1978). In Japan, the cruciferous spice plant, Wasabia japonica, is damaged by Liothrips wasabiae Haga & Okajima, and the leaves of persimmon ( Diospyros kaki) are galled by Ponticulothrips diospyrosi Haga & Okajima (Okajima, 2006) . With so few pest species recorded amongst the Phlaeothripidae, the societal impact of this widespread family of thrips is limited, despite the large numbers of species and their intrinsically interesting biologies, including sub-sociality (Crespi, 1990), eusociality (Crespi et al., 2004), and striking structural polymorphisms (Mound, 2005b).