Influence of Biotic and Abiotic Factors on Mulberry Mealybug, Maconellicoccus hirsutus (Green) during the Summer Season

Department of Entomology, Faculty of Crop Protection, Sindh Agriculture University Tandojam, Pakistan; Department of Agronomy. Faculty of Crop Production, Sindh Agriculture University Tandojam, Pakistan; asifkaleri@ yahoo.com, asifalikaleri2013@gmail.com Key Laboratory of Tropical Biological Resources of Ministry of Education, School of Life and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China; aamirkhokhar2k9_33@hotmail.com, mirmohammadnizamani@ outlook.com, hussainarifkaleri@outlook.com, gooddranam@yahoo.com Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics Faculty of Crop Production, Sindh Agriculture University Tandojam, Pakistan; ferozgul2k9@gmail.com, rindraza7@gmail.com Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Crop Production, Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam, Pakistan; rindrafique@gmail.com, Agricultural Education Extension, Agricultural Social Sciences, Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam, Pakistan


Introduction
Mulberry, Morus alba L., (family:Moraceae) is also used for rearing of silkworms and wood around the world, including Pakistan 1,2 . Mulberry trees in their cultivated form are often trimmed into low bushes to facilitate harvesting of fruits and leaves. In the temperature and subtropical climate, mulberry trees are deciduous; in tropical highland conditions, they are all leaves all year round 3 . The mulberry tree is attacked by the impeller Diaphania pulverulentalis, the caterpillar Spillarcia oblique, the Longhorn beetle Migdolus fryanus and the white beetle Naupactus spp. Scales Pseudaulacapis pentagonal and mealy bug, M. hirsutus (green) 4 . Whitefly is one of the most serious pests of mulberry pests, causing qualitative and quantitative damage 5,6 .
Mulberry worm, M. hirsutus is a small bug. It is located in the local area of South Asia and has spread to all parts of the world, including Africa, North America, the Caribbean and Pakistan and is expanding its scope [7][8][9] .
Infestation of M. hirsutus on mulberry causes malformation of terminal buds and appearance of small curly leaves on the shoots and top apical 5,6 . The land Mac (Maconellicoccus hirsutus) has become a serious pest of many horticultural and crop crops in the world, causing severe deformation of leaves, sprouts and host plants. Mealybug M. hirsutus was originally described in the specimens collected from India 10 . M. hirsutus is an invasive whitefly species originally originally from South Asia or Australia 11,12 and extends to other parts of the world, including the Middle East, Africa, the Caribbean, North and South America (Guyana, French Guiana, Venezuela ), Suriname, Colombia) 13,14 . This insect was first discovered in Brazil in 2010 in Roraima, near Venezuela and Guyana in Brazil 15 .
Therefore, keeping the importance of pest in view the present studies were carried out to generate knowledge and information for the utilization and management of this pest under agroecological conditions of Sindh, Pakistan.

Materials and Methods
Adult females of mulberry worms were collected in plastic bags with the help of camel brushes, from gardening gardens, Sindh Agricultural University, Tandojam and taken to the Entomology Department FCPT for biological research. Adult females were separately released in petri dishes for spawning and a crawler was produced at 25 ± 2°C under laboratory conditions. After hatching, a female pup (crawler) of the same age is kept in 10 separate petri dishes and mulberry leaves are provided as food every other day. Unfortunately, if any insect dies due to an unknown factor, another insect of the same age is replaced in the dish. When all females mature and form pockets when they develop monosexually in the abdomen, they are counted.
One week after hatching, each female pouch was removed with the help of needle and camel crushing, and many unhatched eggs (fertility), the percentage of hatching, were recorded under a compound microscope. The number and age of 10 females of different ages (in days) were recorded.
In the research work, male-female ratios and their longevity (in days) at different ages were observed under a microscope. The morphological characteristics of each age were antenna segments, body segments, filaments, anal parts and bristles.The field data were collected from Horticulture Garden Sindh Agriculture University Tandojam the data were recorded from mulberry varieties. Ten plants from each variety were selected at random for mealybug population study observation was recorded from 2-3 twings measuring 10 cm each per plant.

Biology
The studies on the biology of M. hirsutus under laboratory conditions on mulberry (Var. Alba) indicated that mealybug had an incubation period of 3.12 ± 0.95. There was three nymphal instars. The duration of nymphal instars was 6.21 ± 1.15, 5.32 ± 1.97 and 7.61 ± 2.17 days for first, second and third instar, respectively. After completion of third nymphal instar, the male went into pupation, while female became adults. The duration of the pupal stage in males lasted for 3.35 ± 1.38 days. The adult male longevity was 3.47 ± 1.87 days. While the female mealybug lived for 10.25 ± 2.13 days. The duration of the life cycle of male and female was 29.08 and 31.51 days, respectively.

Survival
The survival of different life cycle stages shown in Table 1 indicated that the highest percentage survival (85%) was recorded in stage, followed by male pupal stage (76%) and second instar (67%). While the lowest survival was recorded in female (33.34%).

Duration of Life Cycle
Male: 29.08 Female: 32.51

Fecundity and Fertility of Egg
The minimum and maximum fecundity of M. hirsutus recorded in the present study was 221 and 323 eggs per female. The overall mean fecundity was 261.4 ± 9.69 eggs per female. The fertility of eggs of M. hirsutus was quite high, it was move than 90% with an average of 93.75 ± 0.52 (Table 2).

An infestation of M. hirsutum on Different Varieties of Mulberry
The population of M. hirsutum on two varieties of mulberry indicated that purple variety of mulberry was less preferred than Alba. The average population recorded was 8.43 ± 0.33 and 9.73 ± 0.94 mealybug per 10 cm twing on purple and Alba varieties, respectively ( Table 3). The mealybug population differences were not significantly different from each other (t = 1.46, DF = 11, P = 0.173).

Discussion
Maconelicoccus hirsutus is very important and serious insect pest of mulberry in Pakistan causing damage to mulberry of plants. The severity of this pest has been reported by many authors such as 16   In the present study, M. hirsutus laid 271 to 323 eggs per female (Table 2). In 22 reported that mated M. hirsutus produced on average 260-300 eggs when reared on hibiscus cuttings at 20-27 o C. In 23 reported a per capita fecundity of 178 eggs within 8 days when reared on hibiscus plants at 27 o C. In 24 obtained the highest mean fecundity when the females were reared on Japanese pumpkin (162 eggs) and the lowest on a meridic diet (59 eggs). Other reports of M. hirsutus fecundity varied significantlyfrom 84 to 654 eggs as reported in 22 and 386-540 eggs reported by 25 . As was shown by 24 the difference in fecundity of M. hirsutus in these reports was likely the result of different host plant species or food substrates.
In the present study, there was consideration variation in resistance of mulberry varieties against M. hirsutus.The purple mulberry variety was comparatively more resistant than Alba variety. There was a significant difference in population development of M. hirsutus on purple variety compared with Alba variety. Evaluated 154 different mulberry genotypes against M. hirsutus and found that the majority of indigenous and exotic genotypes exhibited moderate to high susceptibility to mealybug.
Several researchers have reported on variation in biological parameters in herbivores on different hosts. Woets and van Lenteren 26 . The differences in the populations of the whitefly populations on different host plants were attributed to the effects of host plants on the fecundity, lifespan and developmental rate of the pests. The growth, development and reproduction of the genus Planococcus citri (Risso) varies greatly when fed with red, yellow or green leaves (coleus blumei (Bentham) 27

Summary
The current study was conducted to findout the biology of Maconellicoccus hirsutus on Alba variety of mulberry under laboratory conditions and comparative infestation of M. hirsutus on Alba and purple varieties of mulberry under field conditions. The results indicated that the fecundity of M. hirsutus variety from 221 to 232 eggs per female. The pest completed its life cycle in 29.08 to 32.51 days. The infestation of M. hirsutus on different mulberry variety showed that purple variety was resistant than Alba variety with pest population of 8.43 ± 0.33 mealybugs per 10 cm twig compared with 9.73 ± 0.94 mealybugs per twig on Alba variety.

Conclusions and Suggestions
Maconellicoccus hirsutus is a serious polyphagous pest insect of mulberry and other plants. Therefore, it is suggested that detailed studies on population dynamics, natural enemies and population management of this mealybug may be carried out under agroecological conditions of Sindh, Pakistan.