We report for the first time the syrphid fly, Syritta flaviventris (Macquart), collected in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, as the northern-most record for this introduced Mediterranean species. In total, 3 male specimens and 1 female specimen were net collected on three flower species (Verbena hastata, Eryngium yuccifolium and Asclepias incarnata), at a single site of 11 monitored farm sites in southern Pennsylvania. Floral records for the similar introduced sibling species, Syritta pipiens (L.), are presented as well. Passive monitoring with colored pan traps used to monitor bee populations at these sites was not effective in collecting either species of Syritta. Our study suggests that increased active net sampling of Syritta species may provide more information about this genus\u27 distribution in the New World and support future research efforts examining Syritta biology and life history

Biddinger, D. J

Sidhu, C. Sheena

English

Valparaiso University

The Great Lakes Entomologist Volume 47 Numbers 3 & 4 - Fall/Winter 2014 Numbers 3 & 4 - Fall/Winter 2014 Article 5 October 2014 Northern-Most North American Flower Visitation Records of the Introduced Flower Fly, Syritta Flaviventris (Diptera: Syrphidae) and Comparisons With Sympatric Species, Syritta Pipiens C. Sheena Sidhu University of California D. J. Biddinger Pennsylvania State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/tgle  Part of the Entomology Commons Recommended Citation Sidhu, C. Sheena and Biddinger, D. J. 2014. "Northern-Most North American Flower Visitation Records of the Introduced Flower Fly, Syritta Flaviventris (Diptera: Syrphidae) and Comparisons With Sympatric Species, Syritta Pipiens," The Great Lakes Entomologist, vol 47 (2) Available at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/tgle/vol47/iss2/5 This Peer-Review Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Biology at ValpoScholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Great Lakes Entomologist by an authorized administrator of ValpoScholar. For more information, please contact a ValpoScholar staff member at scholar@valpo.edu. 166 THE GREAT LAKES ENTOMOLOGIST Vol. 47, Nos. 3 - 41Department of Entomology, University of California, Riverside, 900 University Ave. Riverside, CA 92521. 2 Fruit Research and Extension Center, Entomology, Pennsylvania State University, 290 University Dr. Biglerville, PA 17307.Northern-Most North American Flower Visitation Records of the Introduced Flower Fly, Syritta flaviventris (Diptera: Syrphidae) and Comparisons With  Sympatric Species, Syritta pipiensC. Sheena Sidhu1 and D. J. Biddinger2AbstractWe report for the first time the syrphid fly, Syritta flaviventris (Macquart), collected in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, as the northern-most record for this introduced Mediterranean species. In total, 3 male specimens and 1 female specimen were net collected on three flower species (Verbena hastata, Eryngium yuccifolium and Asclepias incarnata), at a single site of 11 monitored farm sites in southern Pennsylvania. Floral records for the similar introduced sibling species, Syritta pipi-ens (L.), are presented as well. Passive monitoring with colored pan traps used to monitor bee populations at these sites was not effective in collecting either species of Syritta. Our study suggests that increased active net sampling of Syritta species may provide more information about this genus' distribution in the New World and support future research efforts examining Syritta biology and life history.  ____________________The flower fly, Syritta flaviventris Macquart (Diptera: Syrphidae), has a cosmopolitan distribution (Perez-Banon and Marcos-Garcia 2000, Lyneborg and Barkemeyer 2005). Its Old World distribution ranges from the northern Mediter-ranean (Spain to Turkey) and south throughout Africa (Thompson et al. 1990). It is also found in the South Atlantic on the island of Saint Helena midway between Africa and South America. Its first New World discovery was in Brazil in 1954, and soon after it was found in both Chile and Argentina (Thompson 1972). Thompson et al. (1990) reported the movement of S. flaviventris from Mexico to Texas, and additional unofficial records place it in Florida and California, (http://bugguide.net/node/view/124554) Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, and Kansas (http://eol.org/pages/752308/maps).  Here we report the northernmost U.S. records for S. flavi-ventris in Lancaster Co., Pennsylvania USA with specimens found in 2012-2013. There are 23 known Syritta species worldwide, but little is known of their basic biology and life history. The best studied species, S. pipiens has been anthropogenically spread throughout the Palearctic, Nearctic and Oriental regions (Perez-Banon and Marcos-Garcia 2000, Lyneborg and Barkemeyer 2005) and, until recently, was the only species with described immature stages and life history. Available information indicates that these hover flies are not aphid feeders as are many other species in this family, but are saprophagous and occur in various types of decaying plant and animal matter as well as ma-nure, but not in aquatic environments (Thompson et al. 1990, Perez-Banon and Marcos-Garcia 2000). Perez-Banon and Marcos-Garcia (2000) were the first to describe the larvae and pupal stages of S. flaviventris and found them feeding on decaying vegetation of the prickly pear cacti (Opuntia maxima Miller) along-side the more numerous S. pipiens. 1Sidhu and Biddinger: Northern-Most North American Flower Visitation Records of the IntPublished by ValpoScholar, 20142014 THE GREAT LAKES ENTOMOLOGIST 167Materials and MethodsSamples were collected from floral provisioning strips that were being evaluated for the conservation and supplementation of pollinators and other ben-eficial insects important in tree fruit production in Lancaster County, Pennsylva-nia. In total, 11 such floral provisioning sites were evaluated weekly throughout the season by passive pan traps and active net collections from plants in bloom starting in 2009. Net collections of 30 minutes duration were made at each site during the biweekly visits and host associations were recorded. Additionally, 8 commercial apple orchards were monitored with the same type of pan traps from 2007-2013. Trapping was performed weekly from pre-bloom (March) until the end of the growing season (mid-October). Weather forecasts were used to place traps when the weather was favorable for pollinator foraging. A pan trap sta-tion was comprised of a triangular, unpainted plywood platform that held three 355 mL plastic bowls recessed into holes; one canary yellow, one white, and one dark blue (Solo®, Lake Forest, Illinois, USA) to attract arthropod species with different color preferences. Edges of the pans were within 5 cm of each other. Bowls were filled with unscented, water-detergent solution (blue Dawn® dish soap; Procter and Gamble, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA) and placed in the orchard between 900 hr and 1200 hr then collected 24 hours later to encompass a full bee flight day. In each orchard, five pan trap stations were placed in a transect running parallel to apple rows at increasing distances from the edge of the for-ested patch adjacent to the orchard. Trap stations ranged from 0-200 m from the forest-orchard interface, and each transect was replicated for a total of 10 pan trap stations per orchard.Syritta pipiens and S. flaviventris adults are very similar in overall appear-ance and size, but can be distinguished by several characteristics as described in a key by Thompson et al. (1990). The easiest characters to differentiate the two species are the silvery white pillinose face, lack of a spurious vein in the wing, and a strong basioposterior ventral spur/tubercle on the male hind femur of S. flaviventris versus a golden pillinose face, spurious vein present, and lack of a tubercle on the male hind femur of S. pipiens (Figs. 1-3). Additionally, the dorsal 2nd and 3rd abdominal segments of S. flaviventris have more extensive orange areas than those of S. pipiens (Fig. 1).Syrphid specimens collected from pan traps were stored in vials with 70% ethanol until pinned and labeled. Syrphids were identified to species by D. Bid-dinger (Penn State University Department of Entomology) based on voucher specimens identified by Chris Thompson (Smithsonian Collection) and using the keys in Vockeroth (1992) and Miranda et al. (2013). Specimens of S. flaviventris were confirmed as new state records by L. Donovall (Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture). Voucher specimens reside at the Penn State Fruit Research and Extension Center, Biglerville, PA and the Penn State Frost Entomological museum, State College, PA. ResultsOut of a total of 4,475 syrphids collected during this study, Syritta sp. were relatively rare and consisted of only 20 specimens of both S. flaviventris and S. pipiens species. Only 4 specimens of S. flaviventris were net collected during this period and only from the Lancaster County pollinator garden site: 2 males collected in 2012 on 10 and 21 July, and 1 male and 1 female on 9 and 16 July 2013. Two males were collected from Verbena hastata L. (blue vervain), and a single male was collected from Eryngium yuccifolium Michx. (rattle-snake master) and the single female was collected from Asclepias incarnata L. (swamp milkweed flowers). Of the 16 S. pipiens specimens (5 male, 11 female), only a single male specimen was collected from apple orchards and in a white pan trap on 8 October 2009. The remaining specimens were all net collected 2The Great Lakes Entomologist, Vol. 47, No. 2 [2014], Art. 5https://scholar.valpo.edu/tgle/vol47/iss2/5168 THE GREAT LAKES ENTOMOLOGIST Vol. 47, Nos. 3 - 4Figure 1. (A) S. pipiens spurious vein present and 2nd & 3rd abdominal segments with less orange dorsally, (B) S. flaviventris lack of spurious vein and more orange on 2nd and 3rd abdominal segments.Figure 2.  (A) S. flaviventris silver pillinose face, (B) S. pipiens golden pillinose faceFigure 3. (A) S. flaviventris tubercle on male hind femur, (B) S. pipiens male without 3Sidhu and Biddinger: Northern-Most North American Flower Visitation Records of the IntPublished by ValpoScholar, 20142014 THE GREAT LAKES ENTOMOLOGIST 169from flowers in the floral provision strips (5 individuals) and the garden plot in Lancaster County (9 individuals). The specimens collected from floral pro-visioning strips were collected on the following flowers (with total indicated in parentheses): Potentilla recta L. (Rough-fruited Cinquefoil) (2), Daucus carota L. (Queen Anne’s lace) (1), Erigeron strigosus Muhl. ex Willd (daisy fleabane) (1), and Cornus obliqua Raf. Silky Dogwood (1); but the majority were from the Lancaster County garden site on: Eryngium yuccifolium Michx. (rattlesnake master) (4), Pycnanthemum muticum (Michx.) Pers. (clustered mountain mint) (2), Monarda fistulosa L. (wild bergamot (1), Veronicastrum virginicum (L.) Farw. (Culver’s root) (1), Achillea millefolium (yarrow) (1), and Doellingeria umbellata (Mill.) Nees (flat-topped aster) (1). In the collection of D. J. Biddinger are three additional specimens of S. pipiens specimens (1 male, 2 females) that were net collected on Rubus idaeus strigosus (red raspberry) blossoms on July 17, 2002 in Juniata County, Pennsylvania. All 4 specimens of S. flaviventris were collected in mid-July as were 11 of the 16 S. pipiens. Of the remaining S. pipiens specimens, 2 were collected in June, 1 in August, 1 in September, and the pan trapped specimen in October as mentioned previously.DiscussionWhile passive pan trap monitoring methods are effective for some bee and syrphid species, it appears from our study that they are ineffective for captur-ing Syritta sp. The majority (95%) of our Syritta spp. samples were collected by active net collecting from flowers. It is likely we would have missed recording S. flaviventris if we had relied only on passive pan trap monitoring. It is possible that new records S. flaviventris and S. pipiens can be obtained through active collecting in other regions to better understand the distribution of these two anthropogenically spread species. In the Old World it appears that S. flaviventris and S. pipiens are sympatric only in the Mediterranean Basin area of southern Europe and northern Africa (Lyneborg and Barkemeyer 2005), but it would appear that both species currently co-exist throughout the southern U.S., at least as far north as southern Pennsylvania. Based on plant hardiness zones for the U.S. and Europe and Africa, it would appear that S. flaviventris is presently only found in growth zones 7–10 in the Old World, which suggests that southern Pennsylvania, at a growth zone 7, may be approaching its northern limit in North America. Previous North American floral visitation records for S. flaviventris were limited to Schinus, Serjania and Polygonium (Thompson et al. 1990), but this study has added 3 new floral records for S. flaviventris and some additional floral hosts for S. pipiens. Adults of both species not only feed on flowers, but also search for mates at floral sites (Gilbert 1986). Collectively, this information can be used to improve collection of Syritta species which can be used to initi-ate further study into the biology and life history of this understudied syrphid fly genus.AcknowledgmentsSurveys for pollinators, including syrphid flies, were made possible from a Conservation Innovation Grant (#68-3A75-9-131) from the United States De-partment of Agriculture-Natural Resources and Conservation Service entitled “Develop and Test Pollinator Habitat Job Sheets for Six Regions of the US” as a subcontract from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. Additional funding was provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and the State Horticultural Society of Pennsylvania. We thank Dr. Neelendra Joshi for his review of an earlier version of this scientific note and to Dr. Katie Ellis, Lolita Miller, and Amanda Ritz for assistance in field collection, mounting, and documenting the survey specimens in a database.4The Great Lakes Entomologist, Vol. 47, No. 2 [2014], Art. 5https://scholar.valpo.edu/tgle/vol47/iss2/5170 THE GREAT LAKES ENTOMOLOGIST Vol. 47, Nos. 3 - 4Literature CitedGilbert, F. S. 1986. Hoverflies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. pp. 12-14.Lyneborg, L., and W. Barkemeyer. 2005. The genus Syritta: a world revision of the genus Syritta, Le Peletier & Serville, 1828 (Diptera: Syrphidae). Apollo Books, Den-mark. pp. 95-98, 190-193.Miranda, G., A. D. Young, M. M. Locke, S. A. Marshall, J. H. Skevington, and F. C. Thompson. 2013. Key to the Genera of Nearctic Syrphidae. Canadian Journal of Arthropod Identification  23: 1-351.Perez-Banon, C., and M. A. Marcos-Garcia. 2000. Description of the immature stages of Syritta flaviventris (Diptera: Syrphidae) and new data about the life history of European species of Syritta on Opuntia maxima. European Journal of Entomology 97: l3l-l36.Thompson, F. C. 1972. A contribution to a generic revision of the Neotropical Milesinae (Diptera: Syrphidae). Arquivos de Zoologia 23: 73-215.Thompson, F. C., F. D. Fee, and L. G. Berzark. 1990. Two immigrant synanthropic flower flies (Diptera: Syrphidae) new to North America. Entomological News 101: 69-74.Vockeroth, J. R. 1992. The flower flies of the subfamily Syrphinae of Canada, Alaska, and Greenland. Agriculture Canada, Ottawa, Canada. pp. 1-456.5Sidhu and Biddinger: Northern-Most North American Flower Visitation Records of the IntPublished by ValpoScholar, 2014

Northern-Most North American Flower Visitation Records of the Introduced Flower Fly, \u3ci\u3eSyritta Flaviventris\u3c/i\u3e (Diptera: Syrphidae) and Comparisons With Sympatric Species, \u3ci\u3eSyritta Pipiens\u3c/i\u3e

https://scholar.valpo.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2304&amp;context=tgle

Northern-Most North American Flower Visitation Records of the Introduced Flower Fly, \u3ci\u3eSyritta Flaviventris\u3c/i\u3e (Diptera: Syrphidae) and Comparisons With Sympatric Species, \u3ci\u3eSyritta Pipiens\u3c/i\u3e

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