Author
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Pogue, Michael |
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Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: 2/10/1998 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: The armyworms of the genus Spodoptera are some of the more serious pests of grass crops throughout the world. They do severe damage to turf and pasture grasses, corn, sorghum, rice, oats, barley, wheat, sugar cane, and millet. Other crops attacked include various vegetables such as tomato, potato, cabbage, carrots, and radishes as well as cotton. A total of 40 characters were used to produce a phylogeny of 27 species. These included external characters of the adult and genitalic characters of both sexes. An initial run of the data treated the character states as unordered. Transformation Series Analysis (TSA) was then used to construct cladogram characters or to define the phylogenetic relationships between multi-state characters. The distribution of the pest and non-pest species are indicated on the tree. Pest species can be closely related to each other, or be more closely related to non-pest species. Spodoptera pectinicornis (Hampson) has been used as a biological control agent against water lettuc (Pistia stratiotes L.) (Araceae) in Florida and it is a sister species to a group of mostly non-pest species from Asia and Australia. This information will be useful to researchers working on biological control of weeds. |
