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Thrips of Australia

Faunistic studies on thrips in Australia

Within Australia, taxonomic studies on thrips failed to develop, partly due to the lack of adequate reference collections, but also due to the absence of any useful introduction to the subject. Kelly accumulated many notes about thrips, and after his death these were compiled into a book by his medical doctor (Kelly & Mayne, 1934). Unfortunately, this included many errors, as did a list of thrips associated with fruit trees in the region of Perth (Newman, 1935). In contrast, the keys to common Australian thrips by Hattie Vevers Steele (1935) (Mrs H.G. Andrewartha) proved particularly useful. Her work recognised that certain biological characteristics of thrips (e.g. vagility, host-range, intra-specific variation) create problems for species identification. Unfortunately, biological insights from ecological studies by her husband did not penetrate further into thrips taxonomy for many years. It was not until the mid-1960’s that the concept of inter- and intra-population variation, together with an appreciation that ecology and taxonomy are inter-related aspects of an organisms’ evolutionary biology, was applied to Australian thrips. Taxonomic studies on the species associated with galls on Acacia trees (Mound, 1971a) led to a particularly intensive series of biological studies on this ecological system. These culminated in a major volume that used Acacia thrips as a ‘model clade’ to examine the evolution of ecological and behavioural diversity (Crespi et al., 2004), and studies on this clade have continued (Bono & Crespi, 2006, 2008; McLeish et al., 2006). Thrips taxonomic studies have focused either on particular ecosystems, such as leaf litter and dead wood (Mound, 1974, 2007; Mound & Minaei, 2006; Wang et al., 2019; Mound et al., 2020), or the diversity on particular plant groups, such as the genus Geijera (Mound, 1971b), and the genus Casuarina (Mound et al., 1998), or the Poaceae (Mound, 2011b). Other studies have focused on particular genera (Odontothripiella: Pitkin, 1972; Anaphothrips: Mound & Masumoto, 2009; Scirtothrips: Hoddle & Mound, 2003; Thrips: Mound & Masumoto, 2005), or higher taxa (Haplothripini: Mound & Minaei, 2007; Urothripini: Mound, 1972; Dendrothripinae: Mound & Tree, 2016; Sericothripinae: Mound & Tree, 2009b).

References

Bono JM & Crespi BJ (2006) Costs and benefits of joint colony founding in Australian Acacia thrips. Insectes Sociaux 53: 489 – 495.

Bono JM & Crespi BJ (2008) Cofoundress relatedness and group productivity in colonies of social Dunatothrips (Insecta: Thysanoptera) on Australian Acacia. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 62:1489 – 1498.

Crespi BJ, Morris DC & Mound LA (2004) Evolution of Ecological and Behavioural Diversity: Australian Acacia Thrips as Model Organisms. Canberra: Australian Biological Resources Study & CSIRO Entomology 328 pp.

Hoddle MS & Mound LA (2003) The genus Scirtothrips in Australia (Insecta, Thysanoptera, Thripidae). Zootaxa 268: 1 – 40. http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2003f/zt00268.pdf

Kelly R & Mayne RJB (1934) The Australian Thrips. Glebe, N.S.W.: Australasian Medical Publishing Co. Ltd 81 pp.

McLeish MJ, Chapman TW & Mound LA (2006) Gall morpho-type corresponds to separate species of gall-inducing thrips (Thysanoptera: Phlaeothripidae). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 88: 555 – 563.

Mound LA (1971a) Gall-forming thrips and allied species (Thysanoptera: Phlaeothripinae) from Acacia trees in Australia. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History) Entomol. 25: 387 – 466.

Mound LA (1971b) The complex of Thysanoptera in rolled leaf galls on Geijera. Journal of the Australian Entomological Society 10: 83 – 97.

Mound LA (1972) Species complexes and the generic classification of leaf-litter thrips of the Tribe Urothripini (Phlaeothripidae). Australian Journal of Zoology 20: 83 – 103.

Mound LA (1974) Spore-feeding Thrips (Phlaeothripidae) from leaf litter and dead wood in Australia. Australian Journal of Zoology Supplementary Series 27: 1 – 106

Mound LA (2007) New Australian spore-feeding Thysanoptera (Phlaeothripidae – Idolothripinae). Zootaxa 1604: 53 – 68. http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2007f/zt01604p068.pdf

Mound LA (2011b) Grass-dependent Thysanoptera of the family Thripidae from Australia. Zootaxa 3064: 1 – 40. http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2011/f/zt03064p040.pdf

Mound LA, Crespi BJ & Tucker A (1998) Polymorphism and kleptoparasitism in thrips (Thysanoptera: Phlaeothripidae) from woody galls on Casuarina trees. Australian Journal of Entomology 37: 8 – 16.

Mound LA & Masumoto M (2005) The genus Thrips (Thysanoptera, Thripidae) in Australia, New Caledonia and New Zealand. Zootaxa 1020: 1 – 64. http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2005f/zt01020p064.pdf

Mound LA & Masumoto M (2009) Australian Thripinae of the Anaphothrips genus-group (Thysanoptera), with three new genera and thirty-three new species. Zootaxa 2042: 1 – 76.

Mound LA & Minaei K (2006) New fungus-feeding thrips (Thysanoptera – Phlaeothripinae) from tropical Australia. Zootaxa 1150: 1 – 17.

Mound LA & Minaei K (2007) Australian insects of the Haplothrips lineage (Thysanoptera – Phlaeothripinae). Journal of Natural History 41: 2919 – 2978.

Mound LA & Tree DJ (2009b) Identification and host-plant associations of Australian Sericothripinae (Thysanoptera, Thripidae). Zootaxa 1983: 1 – 22.

Mound LA & Tree DJ (2016a) Genera of the leaf-feeding Dendrothripinae (Thysanoptera, Thripidae), with new species from Australia and Sulawesi, Indonesia Zootaxa 4109 (5):569 – 582.

Mound LA, Wang J & Tree DJ (2020) The genus Hoplothrips in Australia (Thysanoptera, Phlaeothripinae), with eleven new species. Zootaxa 4718 (3): 301 – 323.

Newman LJ (1935) Thrips census. Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Western Australia 21: 93 – 97.

Pitkin BR (1972) A revision of the Australian genus Odontothripiella Bagnall, with descriptions of fourteen new species (Thysanoptera: Thripidae). Journal of the Australian Entomological Society 11: 265 – 289.

Steele HV (1935) Thrips investigation: some common Thysanoptera in Australia. Pamphlet, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Australia 54: 1 – 59.

Wang J, Mound L & Tree DJ (2019) Leaf-litter thrips of the genus Psalidothrips (Thysanoptera, Phlaeothripidae) from Australia, with fifteen new species. Zootaxa 4686 (1): 053 – 073.