Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Agriculture - Department of Economic Entomology and Pesticides

Mealybugs (Hemiptera: Coccoidea: Pseudococcidae) are phloem {u2013}sucking insects, most of them are important and serious agricultural pests in Egypt and the world. Our study revealed the presence of seven mealybug species belonging to two subfamilies. Subfamily Pseudoccoccinae including (Ferrisia virgata, Planococcus citri, Planococcus ficus, Saccharicoccus sacchari, Dysmicoccus brevipes) and subfamily Phenacoccinae including (Phenacoccus solenopsis, Phenacoccus parvus), on different host plants at different governorates in Egypt. They were identified morphologically based on light & scanning microscope; a taxonomic key was constructed for these species. Synonyms, host plants, and geographical distributions are given for each species. In the present study two molecular techniques were carried out to confirm morphological identification and to detect phylogeny among five mealybug species belonging to five genera. The first technique was by amplification of 28S rDNA gene using specific primers, the second technique was by using bacterial 16S rDNA gene of the examined mealybug species. Partial nucleotide sequences of the amplified products obtained were determined (by Macrogen Korea). The nucleotide sequences for EMM1, EMM2, EMM3, EMM4, EMM5, and EMM6genes were blasted into Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) at National Center for Biotechnology Information website (NCBI), and compared with those deposited in GenBank DNA databaselogenetic tree was constructed using the MEGA 7 and neighbor-joining method

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