Three species of Megacerus Fahraeus (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Bruchinae) associated to Merremia umbellata (L.) Hall. Fill (Convolvulaceae) in México

Abstract

Abstract. In order to determine the species of bruchids that feed on Merremia umbellata (L.) Hall. Fil. (1892) seeds, 110 samples of ovoid capsule were collected, from which 753 bruchids of the genus Megacerus Fahraeus, 1839 were obtained. The most abundant species was M. alabani (Terán and Kingsolver, 1977) (84.86%), followed by M. cubiculus (Casey, 1884) (14.87%) and M. tricolor (Suffrian, 1870) (0.27%). A total of 5,709 seeds was evaluated to determine the damage these insects cause plants. Of these, 880 presented some type of condition, representing a 15.41% damage caused by the three Megacerus species include the parasited. This is the first record of the species M. alabani, M. cubiculus on the host M. umbellata.

Keywords

• Bruchid
• Convolvulaceae
• host
• seeds