The rosemary beetle, Chrysolina americana threatening native and ornamental plants in Cyprus

🗺️ Despite its name, the species is not native to America! In its description, Linnaeus mistakenly assumed the specimen had been collected from America. The native range of the Rosemary beetle includes Mediterranean countries, (e.g. Albania, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Serbia, Macedonia, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey), although after 1936 it spread to many northern European countries (e.g. Belgium, United Kingdom, Austria, Netherlands, Latvia and Germany), as well as to Israel and recently Cyprus.

🐞 Chrysolina americana feeds on the leaves of plants in the family Lamiaceae, such as rosemary, lavender, thyme, sage and others. Some of these plants are commonly planted in house gardens and public spaces as well as cultivated commercially for cooking and as cosmetic aromatic ingredients. The rosemary beetle can cause damage to the foliage of these plants, and in cases where the beetle is abundant, it can cause negative economic consequences as it damages usable leaves, thereby reducing the harvested yields.

🌿From 2015 to 2020, multiple excursions and searched on social media were undertaken across the Island of Cyprus to locate C. americana. The species was recorded at all municipalities of Cyprus and in five host plants: Rosmarinus officinalis, Lavandula stoechas, Lavandula angustifolia, Salvia fruticosa and Salvia officinalis. From the recorded host plants, Rosmarinus officinalis, Lavandula stoechas and Salvia fruticosa are native to Cyprus.

🆘 According to Hadjiconstantis and Zoumidis (2021), "the species can cause minor damage on the foliage of its host plants. Significant damage to the host plants has been reported only on a few urban locations and, in particular, at house gardens; these are cases where C. americana is abundant and has completely damaged the plant’s foliage. This behaviour could be linked to areas with well-maintained gardens, for example, in the absence of natural predators, the beetle can thrive and can potentially cause significant damage. At the moment, no such extreme case has been reported in commercial cultivations or protected areas, yet this behaviour of the species may cause significant problems to farmers in the near future".

📖 Read more about the species here: https://tinyurl.com/ydnc6wuf

Hadjiconstantis M, Zoumidis C (2021) First records of the pest leaf beetle Chrysolina (Chrysolinopsis) americana (Linnaeus, 1758) (Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae) in Cyprus - a study initiated from social media. Biodiversity Data Journal 9(2): 1-10. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.9.e61349

Publicado el 26 de enero de 2023 por jakovosdemetriou