Phlaeothripidae

Dang, Li-Hong, Mound, Laurence A. & Qiao, Ge-Xia, 2014, Conspectus of the Phlaeothripinae genera from China and Southeast Asia (Thysanoptera, Phlaeothripidae), Zootaxa 3807 (1), pp. 1-82 : 6

Review of Phlaeothripidae classification systems

The names for the Order Thysanoptera and its two suborders date from Haliday (1836). Subsequently, Uzel (1895) produced the major work that provided the basis for future studies on these insects, and recognised Phlaeothripidae as the single family of Tubulifera , to which Bagnall (1908) later added the Idolothripidae as a second family. The subfamily sense in which these two names are now used derives from Stannard (1957), although he used Megathripinae, a junior synonym of Idolothripinae that was erected by Karny (1913). The classification within the Phlaeothripidae proposed by Stannard attempted to recognise phylogenetic relationships. In contrast, the classification proposed by Priesner (1961) was essentially typological, with many group names provided for taxa exhibiting some unusual character state. A particularly unfortunate decision in that classification was to place Hoplothrips , a major genus of fungus-feeding species, in the same group as the many genera of leaf-feeding species related to Liothrips . This is particularly relevant here, because Han (1997), in the only review of the Thysanoptera of China, adopted the Priesner typological classification. One major objective of the work presented here is to draw to the attention of thrips students in China and Southeast Asia a more modern approach to thrips phylogenetic relationships, and to emphasise that most of the suprageneric names in Han and Priesner are no longer used.

The various names proposed for supra-generic taxa now placed in the Idolothripinae have been discussed by Mound and Palmer (1983a). The following comments refer to the names available within the Phlaeothripinae . Stannard (1957) recognized the following as representing nine major lineages within the Phlaeothripinae : Haplothrips ; Gigantothrips ; Amphibolothrips ; Hyidiothrips ; Plectrothrips ; Docessissophothrips ; Williamsiella ; Neurothrips ; and Glyptothrips . Mound and Marullo (1996) built on the ideas of Stannard, but recognized only three major lineages. The first was Stannard’s Haplothrips -lineage and this was subsequently treated by Mound and Minaei (2007) as the Tribe Haplothripini ( Table 1 ), a group of flower-feeders that also includes genera of predatory species. The second major group recognised by Mound and Marullo (1996) is the Liothrips -lineage that includes most of the leaf-feeding Phlaeothripinae ( Table 1 ), and this corresponds to the group discussed by Stannard as the Gigantothrips line. The third major group is the Phlaeothrips -lineage of species most of which feed on fungal hyphae, and this comprises the remaining seven groups recognized by Stannard ( Table 1 ). Amongst this large assemblage, the Amphibolothrips genus-group is sometimes referred to as the urothripines ( Mound 1972; Ulitzka & Mound 2014); these are small species that commonly live in leaf-litter, and have the tube and ninth abdominal tergite particularly elongate. Members of the Hyidiothrips genus-group are minute, pale and laterally flattened species. Although generally found in leaf-litter where they are presumed to be fungus-feeders ( Okajima 2006), in Australia one species has been found on the leaves of Lantana where it appears to be predatory on mites. Species of the Plectrothrips genus-group are fungus-feeders on dead branches, and have the sensorium on the second antennal segment placed on the basal half of that segment ( Okajima 1981). The Docessissophothrips genus-group includes fungus-feeding species with unusually broad maxillary stylets that are often greatly elongate, and most of these species are placed in the genus Holothrips . In contrast, the Williamsiella genus-group involves species in which the stylets are sometimes very short, and these thrips are associated with mosses ( Mound 1989). The final two groups recognized by Stannard, the Neurothrips and Glyptothrips lines, include most of the genera of fungus-feeding species found on dead branches and in leaf litter, including Phlaeothrips , Hoplothrips , Adraneothrips , and Hoplandrothrips . The Glyptothrips genus-group has been used for taxa with prominent reticulation on the head, but that condition is now recognised as highly variable within some genera ( Mound 2002). The suprageneric classification of Phlaeothripinae remains less than satisfactory. Two reasonably well-defined major groups can be distinguished, the Haplothripini and the Liothrips -lineage. But the Phlaeothrips -lineage of fungus-feeding species is clearly a complex, polyphyletic assemblage ( Buckman et al. 2013).