Ostrinia nubilalis Parasitoids in Northern Italy: Past and Present

Publication date: Available online 4 April 2018 Source:Biological Control Author(s): Giuseppe Camerini, Stefano Maini, Matthias Riedel Agroecosystems are constantly evolving due to ever changing agricultural patterns. In addition, the ongoing climate changes and the evolution of landscape structures due to human activities tend to modify living communities, including the ones of pest natural enemies. Therefore our knowledge about their evolution and transformation needs a constant updating. Here we retrace the evolution of European Corn Borer (Ostrinia nubilalis Hübner, 1796 - Lepidoptera Crambidae- ECB) natural enemies in the 20th century in the Po floodplain (Northern Italy), which is the main Italian agricultural district for corn production. The changes in ECB natural enemies complex composition have been inferred by analyzing the results of two surveys: the one carried out by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) from 1925 to 1932 and the other one supervised by the Italian entomologist Athos Goidanich from 1921 to 1926. Finally the results of those surveys have been compared to the ones of several studies from the '70s up to the present. As a result, a sharp decrease in biodiversity was recorded, since, while USDA and Goidanich studies revealed the presence of 18 parasitoid species (Diptera Tachinidae and Hymenoptera Trichogrammatidae, Eulophidae, braconidae and Ichneumonidae) only 9 species were recorded according to more recent studies. The possible...
Source: Biological Control - Category: Biology Source Type: research