The first electronic polytomous key to the world species of the subgenus Typhlodromus (Anthoseius) De Leon (Acari: Phytoseiidae)

Abstract

This paper describes the first polytomous computerised identification key within the family Phytoseiidae. It applies to thefemales of the world species of the subgenus Typhlodromus (Anthoseius) De Leon. This group is one of the largest withinthe family Phytoseiidae and the sub-family Typhlodrominae, with nearly 350 species currently recognised worldwide. Noidentification tool of these species exists at the world level, which makes their identification very difficult and unsecure.Thirty five characters were used to characterise each of the 343 species. Among these characters, 14 are discrete and 21are continuous. The polytomous key was constructed using the free software DELTA 1.04 (DEscription Language forTAxonomy) and is freely available at the web site: http://www1.montpellier.inra.fr/CBGP/phytoseiidae/anthoseiuskeypresentation.html. We hope that this work will open new perspectives for the identification of species ofother genera (especially the largest ones, e.g. Neoseiulus, Euseius, Amblyseius) which contains more than 150 species andfor which no key presently exists. We also expect that the present work will make the identification of the world speciesof Typhlodromus (Anthoseius) easier and more secure. Finally, we expect a contribution from the whole Phytoseiidae scientist community to improve subsequent versions of the key.