Neoseiulus barkeri Hughes, 1948

Kreiter, Serge & Abo-Shnaf, Reham I. A., 2020, Phytoseiid mites of Rodrigues Island (Acari: Mesostigmata), Acarologia 60 (2), pp. 449-468 : 450-451

Neoseiulus barkeri Hughes

Neoseiulus barkeri Hughes 1948: 141 ; Chant & McMurtry 2003a: 35; Moraes et al. 1986: 70, 2004: 104.

Typhlodromus (Neoseiulus) barkeri, Nesbitt 1951: 35 .

Typhlodromus (Typhlodromus) barkeri, Chant 1959: 63 .

Typhlodromus (Amblyseius) barkeri, Hughes 1961: 222 .

Amblyseius barkeri, Athias-Henriot 1961: 440 ; Moraes et al. 1989b: 95.

Typhlodromus barkeri, Hirschmann 1962: 9 .

Amblyseius (Amblyseius) barkeri, van der Merwe 1968: 112 .

Neoseiulus bakeri, Ryu et al. 2001: 8 ; Chant & McMurtry 2003a: 33, 2007: 25; Moraes et al. 2004: 104.

Amblyseius mckenziei Schuster & Pritchard 1963: 268 (Synonymy according to Ragusa & Athias-Henriot 1983).

Amblyseius usitatus van der Merwe 1965: 71 (Synonymy according to Ueckermann & Loots 1988).

Amblyseius oahuensis Prasad 1968: 1518 (Synonymy according to Ragusa & Athias-Henriot 1983).

Amblyseius picketti Specht 1968: 681 (Synonymy according to Ragusa & Athias-Henriot 1983).

Amblyseius mycophilus Karg 1970: 290 (Synonymy according to Ragusa & Athias-Henriot 1983).

Amblyseius masiaka Blommers & Chazeau 1974: 308 (Synonymy according to Ueckermann & Loots 1988).

This species belongs to the barkeri species group of the genus Neoseiulus , as the spermathecal atrium is large and forked at junction with major duct. It belongs to the barkeri species subgroup as the calyx is not markedly constricted at junction with the atrium, the atrium is deeply forked at the junction with major duct without vacuolated area, and the major duct, atrium and calyx are of approximately the same width ( Chant and McMurtry 2003a).

Various studies had shown its ability to control Frankliniella occidentalis Pergande ( Rodriguez-Reina et al. 1992) , Thrips tabaci (Lindeman) ( Broodsgaard and Stengaard Hansen 1992) and Tetranychus urticae Koch on cucumbers ( Fan and Petitt 1994b). Fan and Petitt (1994a) showed that augmentative releases of N. barkeri provided control of broad mite, Polyphagotarsonemus latus (Banks) , on peppers. Neoseiulus barkeri constitutes a potential Biological Control Agents (BCA) for several crops especially in vegetables greenhouses. This species had been mentioned by Quilici et al. (2000) and Kreiter et al. (2020c) on La Réunion Island.

World distribution: Neoseiulus barkeri has a worldwide distribution ( Moraes et al. 2004; Demite et al. 2020).

Specimens examined: A single ♀ collected during this study. Port-Mathurin, City Center (11 m aasl, lat. 19°40 ′ 53 ″ S, long. 63°25 ′ 17 ″ E), 1 ♀ on Litchi chinensis Sonnerat (Sapindaceae) , 14/XI/2018.

Remarks: measurements of characters of the female from Rodrigues are only slightly different from female specimens from other countries, especially La Réunion Island. Comparisons with N. barkeri measurements of female and male specimens of various origins in Beaulieu and Beard (2018) show shorter dimensions of all characters of Rodrigues specimens. These authors mentioned shorter dorsal setae of African female and male specimens (lower part of observed ranges) compared to their own measurements ( Beaulieu and Beard 2018).