Molecular identification of Trichogramma species parasitizing Ostrinia nubilalis in corn and pepper in south–east border of Europe

Abstract

The current study extends the faunistic survey of Trichogramma species parasitizing ECB to all agricultural growing regions in Serbia. Specimens of Trichogramma were reared from parasitized egg masses of ECB collected from field-grown corn and pepper crops. The number of egg masses parasitized varied by location. Using sequences of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene, we examined intra and interspecific variation in Trichogramma parasitizing the ECB egg masses. Seventy specimens were successfully sequenced of which, 65 were identified as T. brassicae. The remaining five were identified as T. evanescens, and this second species was only collected from pepper.

Keywords:

• Biological control
• COI
• PCR
• Wolbachia

Acknowledgement

The authors are grateful to MSc Branislav Trudić, Melita Dejanović, Dragan Kerkez, Dragana Dragomirov, Mladen Djuran and Milena Marčić from the Forecasting and warning service in plant protection of Serbia for the help in the field work and Sylvie Warot from INRAE for the help in the laboratory work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The study was supported by the Forecasting and warning service of plant protection in Serbia, by the grant ‘BASF Srbija d.o.o.’, by INRAE and Université Côte d’Azur (grant ‘TRICHOBIO’ and ‘BOOST’ from the UCA JEDI IDEX programme ANR-15-IDEX-0001) in France.