Occurrence of Pissodes terminalis Hopp. (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) in Canada: Life History, Behaviour, and Cytogenetic Identification

Abstract

AbstractHopping’s P. terminalis, which attacks the elongating terminal shoots of lodgepole pine in California, similarly attacks lodgepole pine in the Yukon and northern British Columbia. Cytologically it is unique, and on this basis, although phenotypically variable, it is demonstrated to occur on jack pine in Saskatchewan. Cytogenetic analysis proves it to be a hybrid species, thus accounting for both its internal cytological and external morphological polymorphism. Its fundamental taxonomic characteristics, determinable only in living specimens, comprise an unparalleled sexual dimorphism of chromosome complements and a restriction in breeding to current growth of lodgepole and jack pines.After this article had been sent to press, we learned that G. R. Hopping (in "Lodgepole Pine in Alberta", Department of Forestry Bulletin 127, p. 84, 1962) had already discovered P. terminalis infesting lodgepole pine near Mercoal, Alta., in 1949.