Abstract
Ph.D. (Zoology)
Scale insects, plant pests of quarantine importance, with specialised anatomy and unresolved phylogenetic relationships, are responsible for major economic losses to South Africa and its trading partners. These losses may reach critical levels if the pests are not timely identified and controlled. They are currently identified based on published keys of adult females, a process that takes three days to two weeks depending on the family and the life stage of interception. In addition, agricultural commodities are often contaminated with different life stages, males or damaged specimen of these pests, making identification difficult or impossible. As a result, shipments of agricultural produce are often rejected and trade disrupted. Furthermore, pest invasions do not only occur by importation via formal channels. At times pests cross boarders as contaminants of undeclared material and may again spread on their own as they naturally expand their range. This expansion may be negatively or positively influenced by other factors such as climate change. Resolving the challenges associated with identification, phylogenetic relationships and the limited knowledge of the effects of climate change on distribution range of scale insects are the main goals of this study. Specifically (i) the development of a rapid method of species identification, (ii) the relationship between and within three major scale insect families the Coccoidea, Diaspididae and Pseudococcidae and (iii) the effect of climate change on the future distribution range of scale insects in South Africa were explored...