Horismenus cupreus (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) parasitizing Bedellia somnulentella (Lepidoptera: Bedelliidae) in Ipomoea batatas

• Autor(a) principal: Marinalva Martins dos Santos
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Maria Jéssica dos Santos Cabral, Caíque Menezes de Abreu, Isabel Moreira da Silva, Valmir Antônio Costa, Germano Leão Demolin Leite, Evaldo Martins Pires, Marcus Alvarenga Soares
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFMG
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.1590/1519-6984.262626; http://hdl.handle.net/1843/61355
• topic: Entomologia; Batata-doce; Pragas agrícolas - Controle biológico

The sweet potato, Ipomoea batatas (Linnaeus) Lamarck, is a rustic crop with wide edaphoclimatic adaptation, high drought tolerance and low production cost (Motsa et al., 2015). Sweet potatoes are an option for low-income families' food and economic security in developing countries (Wang et al., 2016; Santos et al., 2021; Cabral et al., 2022). Threats to culture are related to their susceptibility to pest attacks. The sweet potato leaf miner, Bedellia somnulentella Zeller, 1847 (Lepidoptera: Bedelliidae), an invasive and important pest, is found on the continents of Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas and Oceania (Santos et al., 2022). In Brazil, it was registered in 2018 damaging sweet potato leaves in Diamantina, Minas Gerais, Brazil (Santos et al., 2018) and with displacement to the south (Lavras) and north (Salinas) regions of the Minas Gerais state (Santos et al., 2020). This pest's consumption of leaf mesophyll reduces the photosynthetic area hindering the carbon fixation and, consequently, reserves in the tuberous roots, decreasing the yield (Erpen et al., 2013). There is no confirmation of insecticides registered for this pest control, which makes it necessary to study its natural enemies as part of the biological control program.