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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Insect Sci.
Sec. Invasive Insect Species
Volume 4 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/finsc.2024.1385653
This article is part of the Research Topic Abiotic Stress In Agricultural Crops: Impact On Major Plant-Pathogen-Insect Vectors And The Associated Diseases View all articles

Abundance and Diversity of Cotton Insect Pests under ContinuousRepeatedly Cultivated Cotton Fields of Tanzania

Provisionally accepted
Benjamin Madama Benjamin Madama *Gration Rwegasira Gration Rwegasira
  • Department of Crop Science and Horticulture, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Cotton production in Tanzania is facing significant challenges due to insect pests that cause extensive damages to the crop. The most notable pests include the African bollworm (Heliothis armigera Hubner), Spiny bollworm (Earias biplaga Walker), Cotton stainers (Dysdercus sidae (Herrich-Schaeffer), Cotton Aphids (Aphis gossypii Glover), Thrips (Thrips tabaci Lindeman), Jassids (Amrasca biguttula, Bigutula), Leafhoppers (Cicadellidae jassidae), and Whiteflies (Bemisia tabaci Genn). If left uncontrolled, these pests can cause up to 60% damage to the crop. Despite the importance of cotton and the fact that most of these pests are endemic, there are scanty knowledge on the dynamics and distribution of cotton pests across the seasons of the year and crop's phenological growth stages (germination, vegetative growth, flowering and boll formation) in areas under continuousrepeated cultivation of the crop in Tanzania. Here we report on the influence of seasons and cotton's phenological stages on the abundance, diversity, distribution and richness of cotton insect pests. The study was conducted in the Misungwi district for two cotton-growing seasons, using the UKM08 cotton variety. Stick traps and handpicking methods were deployed in catching the cotton insect pests. On average, more thana total of 8,500 insects specimen of diverse families and species were collected every season. The four dominant species among the collected were Aphis gossypii (17.37%), Amrasca biguttula (11.42%), Nezara viridura (10.7%), and Bemisia tabacci (10.68%). Both cotton phenological growth stages and seasons significantly (p< 0.05) influenced the abundance, diversity, distribution and richness of cotton insect pests. In particular, the phenological growth stage 3 exhibited greater diversity of insect pests. The pests' distribution patterns remained relatively uniform across the crop growth stages. Findings from the present study could contribute to developing sustainable pest management strategies in areas under continuousrepeated cotton production in Tanzania and elsewhere.

    Keywords: Pests abundance, Cotton, diversity, species richness, ContinuousRepeated cotton farming 1 Font: Italic Formatted: Font: Italic Formatted: Font: Italic

    Received: 13 Feb 2024; Accepted: 22 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Madama and Rwegasira. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Benjamin Madama, Department of Crop Science and Horticulture, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.