Proconiini Sharpshooters of Argentina, with notes on its distribution, host plants, and natural enemies

The American tribe Proconiini (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae: Cicadellinae) is one of the largest groups of xylem-feeding insects and includes the majority of the known vectors of xylem-born phytopathogenic organisms. The significance of the pathogens that this group transmits gives them an important role as pests, mostly for citrus fruit, grapes, and almonds. Knowledge of these Hemiptera in Argentina is insufficient and fragmentary. Thus one of the aims of this paper is to summarize the available information of the Proconiini sharpshooters in Argentina. In addition, 14 species are mentioned for the first time in the country, and new distributional data are given for 18 species. Thirty-four new associations between sharpshooters and host plants are recorded. New records of egg parasitoids are given for Dechacona missionum, Molomea consolida, M. lineiceps, and Tapajosa similis.Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Muse

New records on the geographical distribution of South American sharpshooters (Cicadellidae: Cicadellinae: Proconiini) and their potential as vectors of <i>Xylella fastidiosa</i>

Xylella fastidiosa is endemic to the Americas, it causes economically important diseases in a variety of different crops, and is transmitted by xylem-feeding sharpshooters. This paper provides new geographic records for Proconiini sharpshooters in South America which helps to better understand their distribution. To develop these new records, we examined material from 3 of the main entomological collections held in Argentina. As a result, 5 species are cited for the first time from Paraguay; 4 for Perú; 3 for Bolivia; 2 for Ecuador; and 1 each for Uruguay and Brazil. Some of the species could be vectors of X. fastidiosa because congeners of the species studied here are known to transmit this bacterium.Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Muse

Proconiini Sharpshooters of Argentina, with notes on its distribution, host plants, and natural enemies

The American tribe Proconiini (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae: Cicadellinae) is one of the largest groups of xylem-feeding insects and includes the majority of the known vectors of xylem-born phytopathogenic organisms. The significance of the pathogens that this group transmits gives them an important role as pests, mostly for citrus fruit, grapes, and almonds. Knowledge of these Hemiptera in Argentina is insufficient and fragmentary. Thus one of the aims of this paper is to summarize the available information of the Proconiini sharpshooters in Argentina. In addition, 14 species are mentioned for the first time in the country, and new distributional data are given for 18 species. Thirty-four new associations between sharpshooters and host plants are recorded. New records of egg parasitoids are given for Dechacona missionum, Molomea consolida, M. lineiceps, and Tapajosa similis.Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Muse

The fate of endemic insects of the Andean region under the effect of global warming.

Three independent but complementary lines of research have provided evidence for the recognition of refugia: paleontology, phylogeography and species distributional modelling (SDM). SDM assesses the ecological requirements of a species based on its known occurrences and enables its distribution to be projected on past climatological reconstructions. One advantage over the other two approaches is that it provides an explicit link to environment and geography, thereby enabling the analysis of a large number of taxa in the search for more general refugia patterns. We propose a methodology for using SDM to recognize biogeographical patterns of endemic insects from Southern South America. We built species distributional models for 59 insect species using Maxent. The species analyzed in the study have narrow niche breadth and were classified into four assemblages according to the ecoregion they inhabit. Models were built for the Late Pleistocene, Mid-Holocene and Present. Through the procedure developed for this study we used the models to recognize: Late Pleistocene refugia; areas with high species richness during all three periods; climatically constant areas (in situ refugia); consistent patterns among in situ refugia, Pleistocene refugia and current distribution of endemic species. We recognized two adjacent Pleistocene refugia with distinct climates; four in situ refugia, some of which are undergoing a process of fragmentation and retraction or enlargement. Interestingly, we found a congruent pattern among in situ refugia, Pleistocene refugia and endemic species. Our results seem to be consistent with the idea that long-term climate stability is known to have a key role in promoting persistence of biodiversity in an area. Our Pleistocene and in situ refugia are consistent with refugia identified in studies focusing on different taxa and applying other methodologies, showing that the method developed can be used to identify such areas and prove their importance for conservation

Magellanic Subpolar Forest (MSF).

<p>Insect-rich area maps (IAMs), maps with areas where more than 80% of the species models matched (8 or more of the 10 species). (a) Late Pleistocene with the ice sheet. (b) Mid Holocene. (c) Present. (d) <i>in situ</i> refugia (IRM), map with the area where 80% or more of the species have found suitable conditions over all three time periods.</p

Ecoregions and resulting Pleistocenic refugia.

<p>(a) Ecoregions: Brown- Valdivian Temperate Forest (VTF), green- Chilean Matorral (CM), red- Patagonian Steppe (PS), blue- Magellanic Subpolar Forest (MSF). (b) Late Pleistocenic refugia: Brown- Valdivian Temperate Forest (VTF) refuge, black- Magellanic Subpolar Forest (MSF) refuge, green- overlapping areas between the two refugia, grey- ice sheet.</p

Boxplots of precipitation related variables.

<p>Comparison of variables with high discrepancy for the Magellanic Subpolar Forest (MSF) and the Valdivian Temperate Forest (VTF) Late Pleistocene refugia (left MSF- right VTF). Boxes represent the upper (in green) and lower (in brown) 25% of the scores and are separated by the median. Units of the y-axes are in brackets beside chart headings.</p

Congruence of <i>in situ</i> refugia, Pleistocene refugia and endemic species distributions of the VTF.

<p><i>In situ</i> refugia green; Late Pleistocene refugia light brown, and endemic species distributions black; areas where all three agree in brown.</p