Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) and other closely related tospoviruses are serious threats to many agricultural, ornamental, and greenhouse crops. TSWV was first recorded in the southeastern United States during the middle to late 1980's with the first collections of the western flower thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis Pergande, following shortly thereafter. In North Carolina, TSWV was first ...

The introduced basswood thrips, Thrips calcaratus Uzel pear thrips, Taeniothrips inconsequens (Uzel), and native basswood thrips, Neohydatothrips tiliae (Hood), form a thrips complex that attacks buds and foliage of basswood, Tilia americana L., trees in the northern United States. We assessed the potential for exploiting visual and olfactory cues to monitor these forest thrips. We tested blue,...

The objective of this study was to identify the aggregation pheromone of the melon thrips Thrips palmi, a major pest of vegetable and ornamental plants around the world. The species causes damage both through feeding activities and as a vector of tospoviruses, and is a threat to world trade and European horticulture. Improved methods of detecting and controlling this species are needed and the ...

Nearly all herbivorous arthropods make foraging-decisions on individual leaves, yet systematic investigations of the adaptive significance and ecological factors structuring these decisions are rare with most attention given to chewing herbivores. This study investigated why an intracellular feeding herbivore, Western flower thrips (WFT) Frankliniella occidentalis Pergande, generally avoids fee...