Thrips constitute one of the main pests of agricultural and horticultural crops around the world. Their small size and cryptic habit make them particularly amenable to movement in plant material and finding and identifying thrips’ species at ports of entry are particularly problematic. Thrips may be transported around the world as eggs, larvae and adults and yet only adult female thrips can be identified using the taxonomic keys available. There is an urgent need for rapid and accurate identification methods for all species of potentially harmful thrips and their various life stages. We developed a method based on the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) which uses internal transcribed spacer–restriction fragment length polymorphism (ITS-RFLP) of the ribosomal deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). This diagnostic method utilizes an electrophoresis gel pattern of 5 enzymes that identifies single thrips eggs, larvae or adults. We have used this method to identify several species of thrips in the Thripidae family including Frankliniella occidentalis and Echinothrips americanus. We propose this method as a supplement to morphology based identification for adult females and as a rapid method for identification of eggs and larvae.
Keywords: Thrips identification, eggs, larvae, PCR, ITS-RFLP, DNA.
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