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A new species of Asterolecanium Targioni Tozzetti (Homoptera: Asterolecaniidae) on a palm in Round Island, Mauritius: a conservation puzzle
Author(s) -
WILLIAMS D. J.,
MAMET J. R.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
systematic entomology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.552
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1365-3113
pISSN - 0307-6970
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-3113.1986.tb00172.x
Subject(s) - palm , biology , scale insect , homoptera , botany , new variety , ecology , pest analysis , hemiptera , cultivar , physics , quantum mechanics
Asterolecanium dictyospermae sp.n., a sap‐sucking scale insect, is described here from Round Island, Mauritius, where it is apparently specific to only two surviving trees there of the palm Dictyosperma album var. conjugatum. Although this palm variety occurs also in small numbers on the main island of Mauritius, it interbreeds there in cultivation with two other varieties of this palm species and may be preventing these trees from producing pure seed. A.dictyospermae has probably evolved on Round Island with the palm variety, but now that the palm is under stress from other causes the numbers of scale insects have increased, thereby threatening the survival of not only the palm variety, but of the scale insect itself.