Rural Industries Research & Development Corporation

Research Compendium 1993 - 1994

Research Project

DATABASE ON APHIDS AND THEIR NATURAL INSECT ENEMIES

Objective

To collate and promulgate the results of a comprehensive study of aphids and their natural insect enemies and mutualists in Australia by a readily accessible computer database and by publication.

The database will provide information in electronic form and in print on the identity, biology, hostplant ranges and preferences, phenology, flight activity, abundance and distribution, vector status, insect natural enemies, mutualists, economic importance and biological control of aphids in Australia.

Background

Aphids are important phytophagous pests that inflict damage directly as sap suckers, toxifiers and pollutive excretors, and indirectly as vectors of plant virus diseases. Three-quarters of the 170 known aphid species in Australia are exotic, many having been accidentally introduced, and most of these are noxious.

Because of the presumably restricted genotype of many of the introduced species, and the large differences between their original environment and Australia's, aphid performance in Australia is in many respects peculiar to Australia and results of overseas' aphidological studies are often not applicable to Australian aphids.

Research

'APHID' Database has been developed. The database is managed by the relational database management system 'INFORMIX-SQL' which runs on a 'SUN' mainframe located at CSIRO Division of Entomology, Canberra, and is equipped with a graphical-user-interface (GUI) using 'INFORMIX-Hyperscript' tools, designed to give the end-user easy-to-use access to database information.

Each uniquely numbered entry is a record of a collection or a citing of an aphid species and any associated biota (if any) and has separate fields in four relational tables for recording the aphid species, aphid morph(s), hostplant data, locality data, collector(s), parasites, hyperparasites, predators, attendant ants, vector activity, literature references, and comments.

Details of classification and nomenclature of all the insect species involved, and the bibliographical references, are entered in four further relational tables. Sundry reports, and graphs and maps of seasonal and geographical distribution, can be generated.

Outcome

The computed data will form the basis of publications, after which the contents of the database will be directly available to other workers. Its continuity and permanence are assured.

Implications

'APHID' Database can include, without modification, extra-Australian regions. The application also has the capacity, with little or no modification, to include other biotic systems up to a tetratrophic level. For instance, it could be used to investigate host-specificity in Psylloidea (psyllids) or biological control of Coccoidea (scale insects, mealybugs), and Aleyrodidae (whiteflies). The database will be of inestimable value to any workers whose work is aphid-related by providing access to valuable, time-saving starting points and reference sources for almost any aspect of aphid study in Australia.

RIRDC Project No: CSE-51A

RESEARCHER: Dr Mary Carver

ORGANISATION: CSIRO Division of Entomology

PHONE: 06 246 4284

PUBLICATIONS:

Carver, M, 1992, Alloxystinae in Australia (Hymenoptera: Cynipoidea: Charipidae). Invertebrate Taxonomy 60, pp769-785.

Carver, M, Hart, P J and Wellings, P W, 1993, Aphids (Hemiptera: Aphididae) and associated biota from The Kingdom of Tonga, with respect to biological control. Pan-Pacific Entomologist 69, pp250-260.

Carver, M, Gross, G F and Woodward, T E, 1994, Chapter 30 Hemiptera. pp316-329 in Naumann, I D (ed.) Systematic and Applied Entomology: an Introduction. 484pp. Melbourne University Press, Carlton Victoria

Last updated: 10 October 1996
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