Thrips and natural enemies through text data mining and visualization

Abstract

Thrips can cause considerable economic damage. In order to reduce the use of agrochemicals research has also focused on different natural enemies. We used bibliometric mapping and visualization to understand the structure of this field. Articles from Web of Science as well as software Vosviewer were used. Analysis of co-occurrence of terms shows the principal research areas: transmission of viruses, chemical or biological control and new species. A third of articles refer to biological control. Visualizations reveal three major groups of beneficials: entomopathogens, parasitoids, and predators. Recently, attention has shifted mainly to predatory mites as biocontrol agents. Our analysis aims to make such information visually more explanatory with better overview of research directions.