Seven citrus orchards on reduced to no pesticide spray programs were sampled for Thysanoptera in central and south central Florida. Inner and outer canopy leaves, fruits, twigs, trunk scrapings, vines and ground cover plants were sampled monthly between January 1995 and January 1996. Thirty-six species of thrips were identified from 2,979 specimens collected from within citrus tree canopies and...

Tospoviruses are considered to be dependent on Thysanoptera for their existence in nature, but scarcely 0.15% of Thysanoptera species (9 of 5500) are known to be vectors. Moreover, these vector species are not closely related to each other, suggesting either that many thrips species have lost an association with tospoviruses or that each Tospovirus species has evolved an independent relationshi...