Natalia J. Vandenberg

Barcode haplotype variation in north American agroecosystem lady beetles (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae).

DNA barcodes have proven invaluable in identifying and distinguishing insect pests, most notably for determining the provenance of exotic invasives, but relatively few insect natural enemies have been barcoded. We used Folmer et al.’s (1994) universal invertebrate primers and Hebert et al.’s (2004) for Lepidoptera, to amplify 658 bp at the 5′ end of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase c subunit I (COI) gene in five species of lady beetles from crop fields in six states in the US Mid‐Atlantic, Plains and Midwest: three native species, Hippodamia convergens Guérin‐Méneville, H. parenthesis (Say) and Coleomegilla maculata (De Geer); and two exotic species, Harmonia axyridis (Pallas) and Coccinella septempunctata Linnaeus. Sequence divergences within species were low, never exceeding 0.9% (Kimura 2‐parameter distances). Sequence divergences between the two Hippodamia species ranged from 14.7 to 16.4%, mirroring the relationships found for other arthropod taxa. Among the exotic species, C. septempunctata sequences were as variable as those of the three native species, while H. axyridis populations comprised a single haplotype. Limited data on two Coleomegilla subspecies, C. m. lengi Timberlake and C. m. fuscilabris (Mulsant), are consistent with their belonging to the same species, although morphological and reproductive data indicate that they represent separate species. Our results support the general utility of COI barcodes for distinguishing and diagnosing coccinellid species, but point to possible limitations in the use of barcodes to resolve species assignments in recently divergent sibling species.

Another Asian ambrosia beetle, Xyleborinus artestriatus (Eichhoff 1878) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae: Xyleborini), newly detected in North America

Abstract Xyleborinus artestriatus (Eichhoff 1878), an ambrosia beetle native to Asia, is reported for the first time in North America based on specimens from Georgia and Texas. This is the twenty-fourth species of exotic Xyleborini documented in North America. North American distributional records, key identification characteristics, morphological variability, and a brief history of the systematics are presented.

The First Record of Brumoides foudrasii (Mulsant) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae: Chilocorini) from South America, with Notes on Its Biology

Over the past several years, the semiarid region of northeastern Brazil has been surveyed for natural enemies of scale insects that attack cotton and cactus pear. Among the predators, coccinellids have been of particular interest, and a few promising control agents are currently under investigation. One of these species, a mostly metallic, blackish, medium-sized Chilocorini (Fig. 1), was first observed in 2007 during a survey of prickly pear infested with Dactylopius opuntiae (Cockerell) (Lima et al. 2011). This coccinellid was originally assumed to be a species of Exochomus Redtenbacher, but the first author (JAG) determined it to be a species of Brumoides Chapin. Subsequent examination by Roger Booth from the Natural History Museum, London (BMNH) narrowed the identification down to Brumoides foudrasii (Mulsant, 1850) using external characters only. Species identification was later confirmed by JAG through comparison of the genitalic structures with specimens from the type locality (Senagal). This is the first record of the occurrence of Brumoides in South America. This genus, which was erected by Chapin (1965) for the species of Chilocorini with eight antennomeres, is primarily restricted to the Old World (Kovář 1995), with three species occurring in North America: Brumoides blumi (Nunenmacher, 1934), Brumoides histrio (Fall, 1901), and Brumoides septentrionis (Weise, 1885) (Gordon 1985). Brumoides foudrasii has been collected in several localities in semiarid parts of Pernambuco, Brazil, including the municipalities of Afogados da Ingazeira, Carnaíba, Frei Miguelinho, Ibimirim, Iguaraci, Ingazeira, Jutaí, Paranatama, São José do Egito, São José do Belmonte, Sertânia, Surubim, Tabira, Tuparetama, and Venturosa (Lima et al. 2011). Previous records for this species are all from western Africa and include the type locality Senegal (Mulsant 1850) in addition to Gambia, Ghana, Namibia, and Sierra Leone (Lund University, Museum of Zoology: The Entomological Collection 2012). The presence of Brumoides in the New World is most likely the result of human introduction. At least one species that occurs in North America, B. septentrionis, has been intentionally introduced for biological control purposes (Newell 1973; Selhime 1956 apud Gordon 1985). However, in the case of B. foudrasii no documentation could be found to support intentional introduction into Brazil.