Updated Checklist of Greenideinae (Aphididae : Hemiptera) and its Host Plants In India

Abstract

Background: The aphids (Aphididae: Hemiptera) are sucking insects and by feeding they devitalized plants and hence considered as one of the major pests of crops, vegetables and fruit trees. The food plant catalogue of Indian aphids dates back almost four decades ago. The researches on aphid taxonomy as well as their host plants is continued with the description of new taxa, the modified status of others, and the publication of other nomenclatural decisions. Recently, the food plant catalogue of  Aphididae is being initiated by us. It is the 8th in series of cataloguing the aphids belonging to subfamily Greenideinae. The work will help to solve some needs pertaining to studies on Indian species, such as synonymic handling and their updated food plant checklist, as well as the lack of a complete and up-todate listing of the species.

Materials & Methods: In preparing of this checklist, recent world literatures (published up to January, 2017) were scrutinised for synonymy of the species of aphids as well as their host plants along with the information available at websites: http://Aphid.SpeciesFile.org (version 5.0/5.0) for aphids, and http://www.ars-grin.gov and http://www.theplantlist.org (version 1.1) for plants accessed on January, 2017.   

Results: The aphids are a group of over 5000 species of plant sap sucking insects distributed throughout the world, from the rainforest to the desert ground. Currently, the family Aphididae comprises 24 subfamilies, out of which the food plant catalogue of Indian  aphids belonging to subfamily Greenideinae is provided in this compilation.

Greenideinae consists of 3 tribes: Cervaphidini, Greenideini and Schoutedeniini. In India, Cervaphidini is represented by 3 genera and 7 species, Greenideini is represented by 5 genera and 87 species, while Schoutedeniini is least diversed containing only 1 genus and 2 species. Host range of Greenideinae in India comprises of 111 plant species belonging to 73 genera and 45 families. The most of the aphid species of Greenideinae are associated with plant orders Fagales (4 plant families, 67 aphid species), Rosales (5 plant families, 19 aphid species), Ericales (6 plant families, 15 aphid species), Malpighiales (3 plant families, 12 aphid species) and Sapindales (4 plant families, 10 aphid species). An analysis of species-wise association reveals that almost 70% of the species feeds on the plants belonging to order Fagales and 52% on only the family Fagaceae.

Conclusion: Out of 96 species of Greenideinae, 45 species are monophagous feeding on only one species of plants; 35 species are oligophagous infesting 2 to 5 plant species; and 12 species are moderately polyphagous infesting 6 to 10 plant species while only 4 species are highly polyphagous reported on 15 to 25 plant species. The group is mainly distributed from east to west Himalayas.