Review Article |
Corresponding author: Robert G. Foottit ( robert.foottit@agr.gc.ca ) Academic editor: David Langor
© 2019 Robert G. Foottit, H. Eric L. Maw.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Foottit RG, Maw HEL (2019) Thysanoptera of Canada. In: Langor DW, Sheffield CS (Eds) The Biota of Canada – A Biodiversity Assessment. Part 1: The Terrestrial Arthropods. ZooKeys 819: 291-294. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.819.26576
|
The known Canadian Thysanoptera fauna currently consists of 147 species, including 28 non-native species, and there are five additional species found only indoors. DNA barcoding data, presence of species in adjacent regions, and preliminary evidence of the presence of host-associated cryptic species suggest that there may be as many as 255 additional species awaiting discovery or description in Canada.
Barcode Index Number (BIN), biodiversity assessment, Biota of Canada, DNA barcodes, thrips, Thysanoptera
The order Thysanoptera (commonly known as ‘thrips’, not to be confused with the genus Thrips) is relatively small, with 6200 species known worldwide (
Taxon1 | No. species reported in |
No. species currently known from Canada2 | No. BINs3 available for Canadian species | Est. no. undescribed or unrecorded species in Canada | General distribution by ecozone4 | Information sources5 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Suborder Terebrantia | ||||||
Aeolothripidae | 13 | 17 | 41 | 30 | widespread south of Arctic | Chaisson 1986; |
Heterothripidae | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 | Mixedwood Plains |
|
Thripidae | 59 | 85 (20) | 192 | 120 | all ecozones including a few species in the southern Arctic |
|
Merothripidae | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Mixedwood Plains |
|
Melanthripidae | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | Pacific Maritime | BIOUG |
Suborder Tubulifera | ||||||
Phlaeothripidae | 30 | 43 (8) | 104 | 100 | all ecozones except Arctic |
|
Total | 102 | 147 (28) | 338 | 255 |
Since 1979, there have been several important advances in the knowledge of Canadian thrips diversity.
DNA Barcode Index Numbers (BINs) which give a label to clusters of similar mitochondrial COI sequences (DNA barcodes) correspond approximately to species in many groups (
Recent revisions affecting the Canadian fauna have been published for Thrips (
Most recent literature on Thysanoptera in Canada treats arising economic issues. The eastern species Echinothrips americanus Morgan became a problem in greenhouses in British Columbia (
This analysis clearly indicates that the Thysanoptera of Canada are understudied. Much of the non-agricultural regions of the country are only sparsely sampled, and the relative knowledge of species occurring in the various provinces and regions is not uniform. The best known region is the province of Alberta (87 species, or about 60% of the species known to occur in Canada; specimens in the Strickland Museum, University of Alberta and
We would like to dedicate this work to the late Dr. Bruce Heming (1939-2018), for his contributions to the understanding of Thysanoptera biology and the fauna of Canada. The authors express their thanks to Jeremy deWaard for updates to the number of available Barcode Index Numbers. We thank David Langor and Cory Sheffield for their critical comments.