Relative abundance of insect predators associated with citricola scale coccus pseudomagnoliarum (Kawana)‎ (Hemiptera: coccidae)‎ within citrus orchards in Lattakia governorate

الملخص EN

The study was conducted in two citrus orchards at Al-Sanobar and Daba orchard in Lattakia governorate, (Syrian coast), during 6102- 2017.

This study aimed to determine predatory insects associated with Citricola scale Coccus pseudomagnoliarum (Kuwana) (Hemiptera: Coccidae).

The predators belong to order Coleoptera which were considered with special importance because they were the most abundant (58.86%) of the total collected specimens: 506 individuals belonging to Coccinelidae family (54.35%), and 42 individuals of Cybocephalus fodori (Endrody-Younga), and Cybocephalidae family (4.51%).

Two species of order Hemiptera were recorded, Geocoris ochropterus (Fieber) which belongs to family Geocoridae (11.60%), and Cardiastethus nazarenus (Reuter) which belongs to family Anthocoridae (16.76%).

The abundance of Neuropteran predatory insects was 8.10%, two species belonged to Coniopterygidae: Conwentzia pineticola (Enderlein), Coniopteryx borealis (Tjeder), and Chrysoperla carnea (Stephens) that belongs to family Chrysopidae.

One species of thrips, Karnyothrips flavipes (Jones), (Thysanoptera: Phlaeothripidae) was recorded with abundance of 3.65%.

Eublemma scitula (Rambur) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) was recorded only at Daba orchard with abundance of 13.6%.

The high biodiversity of predatory insects in the two studied areas suggested the importance of predatory insects as biological control agents against the Citricola scale insect C.

pseudomagnoliarum.