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From forest to plantation? Obscure articles revealalternative host plants for the coffee berry borer,Hypothenemus hampei (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)
FERNANDO E. VEGA FLS1*, AARON P. DAVIS FLS2 and JULIANA JARAMILLO3,4
1Sustainable Perennial Crops Laboratory, United States Department of Agriculture, AgriculturalResearch Service, Building 001, BARC-W, Beltsville, MD 20705, USA2Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 3AB, UK3Institute of Plant Diseases and Plant Protection, University of Hannover, Hannover, Germany4International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), Nairobi, Kenya
Received 22 February 2012; revised 28 March 2012; accepted for publication 28 March 2012bij_1912 1..9
The coffee berry borer, Hypothenemus hampei (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae), is the most devastatinginsect pest of coffee throughout the world. The insect is endemic to Africa but can now be found throughout nearlyall coffee-producing countries. One area of basic biology of the insect that remains unresolved is that of itsalternative host plants, i.e. which fruits of plants, other than coffee, can the insect survive and reproduce in. Anin-depth survey of the literature revealed an article by Schedl listing 21 genera in 13 families in which the insectwas collected, mainly in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This overlooked reference, together with informationprovided in other early articles, suggests that H. hampei is polyphagous, and could provide, if confirmed in thefield, critical information on the evolution of this insect’s diet, ecology and host range. © 2012 The Linnean Societyof London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012, ••, ••–••.
ADDITIONAL KEYWORDS: Coffea – ecology – evolution – insect host range – speciation.
INTRODUCTION
The coffee berry borer, Hypothenemus hampei(Ferrari, 1867) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolyti-nae), an insect endemic to Africa (Vega et al., 2009;Gauthier, 2010), was first reported in exported coffee(Coffea L.) seeds (‘beans’) by Ferrari (1867), describedas Cryphalus hampei. It was first collected in the fieldin 1897 in Mount Coffee, Liberia, classified as Stepha-noderes cooki (Hopkins, 1915), which subsequentlybecame a synonym for H. hampei (Schedl, 1959;Wood, 2007). In 1901 it was reported as a pest ofCoffea canephora Pierre ex. A. Froehner in the Repub-lic of Congo (Fleutiaux, 1901), and ever since theinsect has disseminated throughout nearly all coffee-producing countries in the world, and has become themost devastating insect pest of the two commer-cial Coffea species, C. arabica L. and C. canephora,
causing an estimated $500 million in losses yearly(Vega, Franqui & Benavides, 2002).
Hypothenemus hampei has a cryptic life cycle, withan adult female boring a hole in the coffee berry(botanically known as a drupe) and then a tunnel inthe endosperm (i.e. the major component of a coffeeseed), in which eggs are laid. Upon hatching, larvaecommence to feed on the endosperm, thereby produc-ing small galleries throughout the seed, reducing theyield and quality of the marketable product. To com-plicate matters, there is sibling mating inside theberry, and once adult females emerge from the berry,they are already inseminated and ready to oviposit inother berries. The cryptic life cycle inside the berrymakes the insect quite difficult to control by bothchemical and biological methods. The use of biologicalcontrol agents such as parasitoids, predators, andfungal entomopathogens is a pest management alter-native that has been practiced in several countries(Jaramillo, Borgemeister & Baker, 2006; Vega et al.,*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012, ••, ••–••. With 1 figure
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© 2012 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012, ••, ••–•• 1
2009), and yet the insect continues to pose a formi-dable challenge to coffee growers throughout theworld.
The natural habitats of C. arabica and C. cane-phora are the humid, evergreen forests of Africa(Davis et al., 2006): the former is a high-altitudespecies (900–2000 m a.s.l.) of south-western Ethiopiaand the surrounding regions; the latter is a predo-minately lowland plant (50–1500 m a.s.l.) foundthroughout much of tropical Africa, west of the RiftValley (Davis et al., 2006). One aspect of paramountimportance in dealing with the basic biology ofH. hampei has been determining its alternative hostplants in Africa, i.e. are there plants other thanC. arabica and C. canephora that, in their naturalhabitat, are suitable for the reproduction and devel-opment of the insect?
Recently, as part of a project aimed at locatingalternative host plants for H. hampei in Africa, wecompiled a list of Hypothenemus species that havebeen reported in Africa together with the host plantsfor these species, when known. We identified 94Hypothenemus species out of 179 described species ashaving been recorded in Africa (F. E. Vega, unpubl.data). This process required keeping track of oldnames for Hypothenemus species, based on Wood &Bright (1987, 1992), Bright & Skidmore (1997, 2002),and Wood (2007), and consulting the literaturereviewed in these works. During this review, and toour great surprise and excitement, we discoveredthree obscure studies, either not previously cited orundervalued by subsequent researchers working inour field. These works have important consequencesfor the study of alternative hosts of H. hampei.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
Three articles have revealed important aspects of thebiology of the coffee berry borer: Beille (1925), Ghes-quière (1933), and Schedl (1960). The most significantwas Schedl’s (1960) article, which was found whiletracking records for Hypothenemus species in Africa(see previous paragraph), and was cited by Wood& Bright (1987). It appears the importance of thisarticle was not recognized because of its title, Insectesnuisibles aux fruits et aux graines (Insect pests offruits and grains), which does not give any indicationabout its coverage of H. hampei.
RESULTS
The first significant finding we came across was aarticle by Beille (1925), in which he writes:
Le début de la maladie a coïncidé avec la destruction de la forêt;il semble que le Stephanoderes, privé des végétaux sur lesquels
il pullulait, ait trouvé dans les nouvelles plantations de Caf-éiers, des conditions favorable à son évolution. [The onset of thedisease coincided with the destruction of the forest; it appearsthat Stephanoderes (i.e. Hypothenemus hampei), lacking theplants that it frequents, has found in the new coffee planta-tions, conditions that are favourable to his evolution.]
This article is significant because, as far as we know,it is the first mention of plants in the forest beingoriginal host plants for the insect, and ascribes forestdestruction as a contributor to the insect moving intocoffee plantations. Before being commercially planted,C. canephora was endemic to humid, evergreenforests in Africa (Davis et al., 2006), and Beille’s state-ment would require the insect to have used C. cane-phora (or other wild Coffea species) as one of its manyhost plants in the forest, in order to make it plausiblefor the insect to have then been able to exploit coffeeplantations.
The second significant finding comes from an articleby Schedl (1960), in which he reports results of a fieldsurvey he conducted in the Belgian Congo (present-day Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC), togetherwith findings from other scientists. Karl E. Schedl(1898–1979) was a world-renowned bark beetle tax-onomist who published 342 articles dealing with barkbeetle taxonomy (Wood & Bright, 1992). What isquite striking about Schedl’s (1960) article is thatH. hampei was recovered from 20 plant genera (otherthan Coffea) in 13 families (Table 1). Some examplesof damaged fruits presented by Schedl (1960) areshown in Figure 1. The valid name for the coffeeberry borer at the time of publication was Stephano-deres hampei, and what Schedl (1960) reports asStephanoderes punctatus was later re-classified asH. hampei by Wood (1972). Concerning H. hampei,Schedl (1960: 13) writes:
Il est intéressant, du point de vue biologique, de noter que,d’après les recherches faites par l’auteur à Yangambi etd’après les données bibliographiques au sujet de Stephano-deres hampei Ferr., il existe dans la forêt ombrophile touteune série d’hôtes naturels du parasite qui lui donnent lapossibilité de se développer indépendamment des plantationsde caféiers. Il est certain que cet insecte est une espèceendémique de la forêt ombrophile; il ne s’établit que secon-dairement dans les plantations de caféiers. [It is interesting,from the biological point of view, to note that after the inves-tigations conducted by the author in Yangambi and after thebibliographical data on the subject of Stephanoderes hampeiFerr., there exists inside the rainforest a series of naturalhosts for the parasite that give it the possibility to developindependently from coffee plantations. It is certain that thisinsect is an endemic species of the rainforest; it becomesestablished only secondarily in coffee plantations.]
Schedl (1960) specifically mentions that the forestplants provide the insect with ‘the possibility to
2 F. E. VEGA ET AL.
© 2012 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012, ••, ••–••
Tab
le1.
Pla
nts
inw
hic
hS
ched
l(1
960)
repo
rted
the
coff
eebe
rry
bore
r(H
ypot
hen
emu
sh
ampe
i)as
atta
ckin
gfr
uit
sor
seed
s.S
teph
anod
eres
pun
ctat
us
and
Ste
phan
oder
esh
ampe
iar
esy
non
yms
for
H.h
ampe
i.A
tota
lof
21ge
ner
ain
13fa
mil
ies
are
repo
rted
.Hos
tpl
ant
nam
esin
pare
nth
eses
indi
cate
the
curr
ent
nam
e
Fam
ily
Hos
tpl
ant
(cu
rren
tn
ame)
H.h
ampe
ire
port
edas
:R
epor
ted
loca
tion
Pla
nt
hab
itP
lan
tdi
stri
buti
onP
lan
tE
colo
gyF
ruit
See
dsS
eed
fat
con
ten
t
Ach
aria
ceae
Cal
onco
baaf
f.cr
epin
ian
aS
teph
anod
eres
pun
ctat
us
DR
CTr
ee(r
arel
ya
shru
b),
10(–
25)
mta
ll
Trop
ical
Wes
tan
dC
entr
alA
fric
aH
um
idfo
rest
;85
0–15
00m
.a.s
.l.C
apsu
le,
subg
lobu
lar,
(5–)
7(–8
)¥
5–6(
–8)
cm,
oran
ge;
wit
hn
um
erou
sse
eds
See
dsan
gula
r,0.
7–0.
8¥
0.5–
0.6
mm
Un
know
n.
Oth
ersp
ecie
sin
gen
us
said
tobe
‘oil
rich
’
Apo
cyn
acea
eP
leio
carp
atu
bici
na
Sta
pf(P
leio
carp
apy
cnan
tha
(K.
Sch
um
)S
tapf
)
Ste
phan
oder
esh
ampe
iD
RC
Tree
20(–
30)
mta
ll;
bole
up
to50
cmin
diam
eter
Trop
ical
Wes
tan
dC
entr
alA
fric
a,an
dw
este
rnE
ast
Afr
ica
Hu
mid
fore
st,
prim
ary
and
seco
nda
ry;
up
to23
00m
.a.s
.l.
Com
pose
dof
seve
ral
basa
lly
join
edca
rpel
s,ea
chca
rpel
glob
ose
toel
lips
oid,
1.3–
2.3(
–3)
cmlo
ng,
yell
owto
oran
ge;
each
carp
el2-
seed
ed
See
dsel
lips
oid
toob
lon
g,6.
5–13
.5m
mlo
ng
Un
know
n
Big
non
iace
aeS
path
odea
cam
pan
ula
taP.
Bea
uv.
S.h
ampe
iD
RC
Tree
,25
(–35
)m
tall
;bo
leu
pto
60cm
indi
amet
er
Trop
ical
Wes
tan
dC
entr
alA
fric
a,an
dw
este
rnE
ast
Afr
ica
Hu
mid
fore
stan
dsa
van
na,
prim
ary
and
seco
nda
ry;
up
to20
00m
.a.s
.l.
Woo
dyca
psu
le,
deh
isci
ng
by2
valv
es,
nar
row
lyel
lips
oid,
15–2
7¥
3.5–
7cm
;se
eds
nu
mer
ous
See
dsth
inan
dfl
at,
very
broa
dly
win
ged,
~1.5
¥2
cm
Un
know
n
Cal
oph
ylla
ceae
Mam
mea
afri
can
aS
abin
eS
.ham
pei
DR
CTr
ee,
30–4
5m
tall
;bo
leu
pto
125
cmin
diam
eter
Trop
ical
Afr
ica
Hu
mid
fore
st,
prim
ary
and
seco
nda
ry,
up
to10
00m
.a.s
.l.
Dru
pe,
wit
h1–
4(o
ne
seed
ed)
pyre
nes
,gl
obos
eto
pear
-sh
aped
,7–
18(–
30)
¥10
cm
See
ds1–
4,fl
atte
ned
,~3
cmlo
ng
See
ds:
~10%
oil
(9.6
%oi
l:co
nsi
stin
gof
am
ixtu
reof
olei
cac
id34
.9%
,pa
lmit
icac
id32
.3%
,li
nol
eic
acid
22.9
%)
[pal
mit
icac
id(2
8%),
stea
ric
acid
(27.
5%),
myr
isti
cac
id(1
.5%
),la
uri
cac
id(1
%)]
Clu
siac
eae
All
anbl
acki
afl
orib
un
da
Oli
v.S
.ham
pei
DR
CTr
ee,
~30
mta
ll;
bole
~50
cmor
mor
ein
diam
eter
Trop
ical
Wes
tan
dC
entr
alA
fric
aH
um
idfo
rest
,pr
imar
yan
dse
con
dary
;u
pto
1000
m.a
.s.l.
Ber
ry,
elli
psoi
d,20
–50
¥5–
14cm
(col
our)
;40
–80-
seed
ed,
each
encl
osed
ina
pin
kish
aril
See
dsov
oid,
2.5–
3¥
1.5–
2cm
Ker
nel
(~60
%se
edm
ass)
:~7
2%fa
t(s
tear
icac
id45
–58%
and
olei
cac
id40
–51%
)C
ombr
etac
eae
Term
inal
iasu
perb
aE
ngl
.&
Die
ls.
S.p
un
ctat
us
DR
CTr
ee,
up
to45
(–50
)m
tall
;bo
le12
0(–1
50)
cmin
diam
eter
Trop
ical
Wes
tan
dC
entr
alA
fric
aH
um
idfo
rest
,pr
imar
yan
dse
con
dary
;u
pto
1000
m.a
.s.l.
Win
ged
nu
t(i
nde
his
cen
t),
tran
sver
sely
oblo
ng-
elli
ptic
alin
outl
ine,
1.5–
2.5
¥4–
7cm
;1-
seed
ed
See
d~1
.5¥
7cm
Un
know
n
FROM FOREST TO PLANTATION 3
© 2012 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012, ••, ••–••
Tab
le1.
Con
tin
ued
Fam
ily
Hos
tpl
ant
(cu
rren
tn
ame)
H.h
ampe
ire
port
edas
:R
epor
ted
loca
tion
Pla
nt
hab
itP
lan
tdi
stri
buti
onP
lan
tE
colo
gyF
ruit
See
dsS
eed
fat
con
ten
t
Leg
um
inos
aeP
has
eolu
slu
nat
us
L.
S.h
ampe
iU
gan
daC
lim
bin
g,tr
aili
ng
orm
ore
orle
sssh
rubb
y,an
nu
alor
pere
nn
ial;
stem
su
pto
4.5(
–8)
mlo
ng
Cu
ltiv
ated
thro
ugh
out
the
wor
ld,
intr
opic
alan
dte
mpe
rate
regi
ons;
intr
odu
ced
from
Trop
ical
Sou
thA
mer
ica
Cu
ltiv
ated
un
der
vari
ous
con
diti
ons
Pod
,[?
deh
isce
nt]
,ob
lon
g,(4
.5–)
5–10
.5(–
13)
¥1–
2(–3
)cm
;2–
4(–5
)-se
eded
See
dski
dney
-sh
aped
torh
ombo
idor
glob
ose,
8–11
¥6–
7m
m
Edi
ble
port
ion
[per
100
g(i
mm
atu
rebe
an)]
:w
ater
66.3
g,pr
otei
n8.
3g,
carb
ohyd
rate
23.1
g,fi
bre
1.0
g~0
.7%
fat
Leg
um
inos
aeC
ath
orm
ion
alti
ssim
um
(Hoo
kf.
)H
utc
h&
Dan
dy(A
lbiz
zia
alti
ssim
aH
ook
f.)
S.p
un
ctat
us
DR
CTr
ee,
15–3
5m
tall
;bo
leu
pto
80cm
indi
amet
er
Trop
ical
Wes
tan
dC
entr
alA
fric
aH
um
idan
dsu
bhu
mid
fore
st,
prim
ary
and
seco
nda
ryfo
rest
;10
–100
0m
.a.s
.l.
Pod
,br
eaki
ng
up
into
1-se
eded
segm
ents
,n
arro
wly
oblo
ng,
10–2
8¥
1–2
cm,
red-
brow
nto
blac
kish
;u
pto
20-s
eede
d
See
dsob
lon
gto
len
s-sh
aped
,fl
atte
ned
,0.
6–0.
9¥
0.6–
0.7
mm
Fer
men
ted
seed
s:25
.3%
prot
ein
,16
.9%
fat
and
10%
carb
ohyd
rate
Leg
um
inos
aeC
aesa
lpin
iapu
lch
erri
ma
(L.)
Sw
.
S.p
un
ctat
us
DR
CS
hru
bor
smal
ltr
ee,
up
to5
mta
llP
roba
bly
nat
ive
totr
opic
alA
mer
ica
(th
ough
ofte
nal
lege
dto
beA
siat
ic);
wid
ely
cult
ivat
edin
the
trop
ics
Cu
ltiv
ated
un
der
vari
ous
con
diti
ons
intr
opic
alan
dsu
btro
pica
lre
gion
s
Pod
,de
his
cin
gdo
wn
both
side
s,ob
liqu
ely
oblo
ng
toob
lan
ceol
ate,
flat
ten
ed,
6–12
¥1.
4–2.
5cm
;se
vera
lse
eded
See
ds,
obov
ate
orob
tria
ngu
lar,
com
pres
sed,
9–10
¥7–
8¥
3m
m
Un
know
n
Leg
um
inos
aeD
iali
um
laco
urt
ian
um
Ver
moe
sen
(D.
engl
eria
nu
mH
enri
q.)
S.h
ampe
i,S
.pu
nct
atu
sD
RC
Tree
8–23
mta
ll,
orsh
rub
1–3
mta
llTr
opic
alW
est
and
Cen
tral
Afr
ica
Hu
mid
fore
st;
900–
1450
m.a
.s.l.
Pod
,in
deh
isce
nt,
±ob
ovoi
d,2.
2–3.
7¥
1.4–
2.5
cm;
1-or
2-se
eded
,ea
chem
bedd
edin
afl
oury
pith
See
ds±
len
ticu
lar,
8–13
¥7–
8.5
¥3.
5–5
mm
Un
know
n
Leg
um
inos
aeO
xyst
igm
aox
yph
yllu
m(H
arm
s)L
eon
ard
S.h
ampe
iD
RC
Tree
,u
pto
45m
tall
;bo
le13
0(–1
80)
cmin
diam
eter
Trop
ical
Wes
tan
dC
entr
alA
fric
aH
um
idan
dsu
bhu
mid
fore
st;
up
to80
0m
.a.s
.l.
Pod
inde
his
cen
t,sa
mar
a-li
ke(l
eaf-
like
,ve
ryfl
atte
ned
),3.
5–13
¥2.
2–8
cm;
1-se
eded
See
dsfl
atte
nde
d-el
lips
oid,
2–5
¥2–
4cm
Un
know
n.
Oth
ersp
ecie
sin
gen
us
said
tobe
‘oil
rich
’
Mal
vace
aeC
ola
gris
eifl
ora
De
Wil
d.S
.pu
nct
atu
sD
RC
Tree
,u
pto
22(–
35)
mta
ll;
bole
up
to30
cmin
diam
eter
Gab
onan
dD
RC
Hu
mid
and
subh
um
idfo
rest
;u
pto
800
m.a
.s.l.
Fru
itco
nsi
stin
gof
foll
icle
s,ov
oid,
6¥
3.5
cm;
3–7-
seed
ed
See
dspl
ano-
con
vex,
~0.2
¥0.
15cm
Un
know
n
Mal
vace
aeH
ibis
cus
sp.
S.h
ampe
iD
RC
Spe
cifi
cin
form
atio
nn
otav
aila
ble
4 F. E. VEGA ET AL.
© 2012 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012, ••, ••–••
Mal
vace
aeT
heo
brom
aca
cao
L.
S.h
ampe
iD
RC
Tree
,4–
20m
tall
Nat
ive
toTr
opic
alS
outh
Am
eric
a;cu
ltiv
ated
thro
ugh
out
Trop
ical
Afr
ica
Cu
ltiv
ated
un
der
vari
ous
con
diti
ons
Ber
ry-l
ike
dru
pe,
com
mon
lyca
lled
apo
d,gl
obos
eto
cyli
ndr
ical
,10
–32
¥6–
12cm
,20
–60-
seed
ed,
seed
sem
bedd
edin
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FROM FOREST TO PLANTATION 5
© 2012 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012, ••, ••–••
A
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6 F. E. VEGA ET AL.
© 2012 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012, ••, ••–••
develop independently from coffee plantations’, thusimplying that the insect could possibly complete itslife cycle in these plants (i.e. they could be alternativehost plants). Furthermore, Schedl (1960: 13) alsostates:
Comme le caféier est également cultivé en dehors de la forêtombrophile typique, il y a lieu de considérer que dans cesautres situations, S. hampei Ferr. possède également deshôtes naturels à partir desquels il infeste les plantations decaféiers, même lorsque la lutte menée contre lui est intense.[As coffee is also cultivated outside of the typical rainforest,it should be considered that in these other situations,S. hampei Ferr. also has natural hosts from which it infestsplantations of coffee, even when the struggle against it isintense.]
This indicates that in areas where there is coffeeoutside the vicinity of a rainforest (more correctlytermed humid, evergreen forest), it is possible thatother plants might serve as hosts for the insects.
The article by Schedl (1960) is also significantbecause it suggested that H. hampei could bepolyphagous (‘generalists that exploit plants in morethan one family’; Price et al., 2011). In his landmarkbook on coffee pests, Le Pelley (1968) discussedH. hampei host plants, and after mentioning severalreports of the insect having been found in plantsother than Coffea, he concludes that ‘In none of theabove cases was breeding found in the plants andthey can be considered as occasional food plants only;some of the records may even be erroneous throughmisidentification of the insect found in them’ (p. 118).Interestingly, even though Le Pelley (1968) citesSchedl (1960), he does not include the host plantslisted in that publication. It should be emphasizedthat Schedl’s expertise in bark beetle taxonomymakes it highly unlikely that he would have beenmistaken in identifying H. hampei, and therefore hisidentifications must be considered reliable based onsubsequent work by Wood & Bright (1987, 1992) andWood (2007). The only caveat is that as mentionedabove, what he classified as S. punctatus was laterre-classified as H. hampei by Wood (1972).
Sixteen of the 21 genera listed in Table 1 werereported by Waller, Bigger & Hillocks (2007), based ona subsequent article by Schedl (1961). Waller et al.(2007), in reference to the list of plants they compiled,wrote: ‘. . . it has been assumed by many authors(e.g. Le Pelley, 1968; Hill, 1975) that these are eitherexploratory attacks by the beetle on plants in which itcannot breed or that the beetle has been confusedwith other, similar species of Scolytid’. This meansthat Schedl’s (1960) article was unknown to Walleret al. (2007), as it is not cited by them, and further-more, as mentioned above, their assumption thatthese beetles had been confused with similar species
is unlikely given that Schedl was an expert on theidentification of H. hampei. It is clear then thatSchedl (1960) reveals important information on pos-sible alternative host plants for H. hampei, for whichfield confirmation is now urgently required. At thispoint, it is important to observe that Schedl (1960: 14)mistakenly reported that Roepke (1919) reported hostplants for H. hampei in Indonesia. Roepke (1919: 21–22) actually reported that none of the beetles boredinto the branches of the plant species tested, and thatall of H. hampei had died within 2–3 days in thevarious seeds tested.
The third significant article reporting alternativehost plants for H. hampei was published by Ghes-quière (1933). In this article, he stated:
Le Stephanoderes hampei Ferr. est certainement, au point devue économique, le plus dangereux, il a toujours été considéré,jusqu’a présent, comme un sténomère spécifique des Coffea.Il y a une vingtaine d’années cependant, notre collègueR. Mayné signalait que cet insecte fréquentait, outre le Coffearobusta son hôte habituel, des Hibiscus et diverses Légu-mineuses. Cette assertion mise en doute par d’autres ento-mologistes, est actuellement confirmée par les résultats de nosrecherches sur Cacaoyer, Caesalpinia pulcherrima, et Dialiumlacourtianum. Les récoltes de larves, nymphes et adultes surce dernier, surtout, ne peuvent laisser subsister aucun doute,cette Légumineuse croissait, par bosquets, dans les savanesboisées du Kasai, loin de toute plantation et de galerieforestière quelconque. L’utilisation du D. lacourtianum commeplante-piège serait sans doute à préconiser, il murit ses fruitstardivement en saison sèche, à une époque différente desCaféiers et fournirait en même temps on ombrage léger néces-saire aux plantations équatoriales. [Stephanoderes hampeiFerr. is certainly, from an economic point of view, the mostdangerous, and it has always been considered, until now, likea specific stenomere (old term used in classification ofColeoptera) of Coffea. It has been 20 years since our colleagueR. Mayné (see Mayné, 1914) noted that this insect frequented,in addition to its habitual host Coffea robusta (valid name:C. canephora), Hibiscus and various Leguminosae. This asser-tion, doubted by other entomologists (Ghesquière, (1933),includes a footnote to specify that these doubts by otherentomologists are based on possible mistakes in taxonomicdetermination), is currently supported by the results of ourresearch on cocoa, Caesalpinia pulcherrima, and Dialiumlacourtianum (valid name: D. englerianum). The collection oflarvae, pupae and adults on the latter, above all, can leave nodoubt, that this Leguminosae growing in groves in the wood-lands of the Kasai, away from all plantations and any galleryforest. (Our interpretation of this apparently incomplete sen-tence is that all stages of the insect were found on this plantaway from coffee plantations and the forest, thus indicatingthat the insect does not need coffee or other forest plants tosurvive.) The use of D. lacourtianum as a trap plant should beadvocated because its fruits ripen late in the dry, at a timedifferent from coffee, while providing at the same time thelight shade needed in equatorial plantations.]
FROM FOREST TO PLANTATION 7
© 2012 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012, ••, ••–••
Ghesquière’s (1933) article confirms the presence ofother plants on which H. hampei can reproduce.
Habit, distribution, and ecology of the plants listedin Table 1, as well as information of the fruit andseeds, were obtained from the herbarium at the RoyalBotanic Gardens, Kew, and from various literaturesources (Burkill, 1985, 1994, 1997; PROTA, 2012).
CONCLUSIONS
The articles by Beille (1925), Ghesquière (1933), andparticularly Schedl (1960), raise important issues,which if resolved, would greatly expand our knowl-edge of H. hampei. For example, were wild Coffeaspecies the original host plants for the insect in addi-tion to those plants reported by Schedl (1960), and didforest disturbances push the insect towards areaswhere food resources, in the form of C. canephoraplantations, were readily available, resulting in peststatus, as implied by Beille (1925)? To our knowledge,H. hampei is the only insect pest that completes itslife cycle in Coffea seeds, even though eight additionalHypothenemus species have been collected fromCoffea plants: Hypothenemus areccae (Hornung),Hypothenemus crudiae (Panzer), Hypothenemuseruditus Westwood, Hypothenemus grandis Schedl,Hypothenemus liberiensis (Hopkins), Hypothenemusplumeriae (Nordlinger), Hypothenemus seriatus(Eichoff), and Hypothenemus solitarius (Schedl) (F.E. Vega, unpubl. data). Nevertheless, the use of coffeeseeds as food by H. hampei requires biochemicalmechanisms to break down the alkaloid caffeine,known to be toxic to other insects (see Vega et al.,2003).
Our assessment of the species listed by Schedl(1960) shows that many of the proposed alternativehosts for H. hampei have similar biological charac-teristics. The first of these, and one that immedi-ately appears at odds with the Coffea host, is theheight of the plant species listed in Table 1. Fifteenof the 20 (75%) species (i.e. excluding Coffea) canattain a height greater than 15 m; and 13 (65%) aretrees of more than 25 m in height, with severalof these attaining heights between 30 and 45 m(Table 1). Thus, this list includes many canopy treesand canopy emergents. A canopy existence has notpreviously been suggested for H. hampei. Coffeaspecies rarely attain heights of greater than 10 m.Secondly, a large number of the species listedpossess seeds with a high oil/fat content. Eight of the20 species (40%; excluding Coffea, and including twogenera without specific information) are reported tohave seeds with high oil or fat content. This per-centage could be considerably larger, as the oil/fatcontent of many of the listed species are unknown tous. Significantly, the seeds (endosperm) of Coffea are
also rich in fats, having a fat content between 7 and17% (Speer & Kölling-Speer, 2006). This relationshipis, however, by no means universal for the specieslisted by Schedl (1960), as some species, notablyPhaseolus lunatus, are low in oil/fat; we also have aconsiderable quantity of missing data for seed com-position. Thirdly, large seed size figures prominentlyin the list. Thirteen of the 20 species (65%; excludingCoffea, and including two genera without specificinformation) have seeds with at least one dimension(e.g. length or width) greater than 1 cm. For Coffeaspecies reported as hosts of H. hampei (Table 1), theseeds are hemi-ovoid, and usually between 0.9 and1.4 cm long. In summary, a high proportion of thealternative hosts reported by Schedl (1960) are sub-stantial rainforest trees, and the majority havelarge, nutritious seeds capable of providing a worth-while food source for H. hampei. It is also evidentfrom Table 1 that there are three species listed ascultivated and introduced from South America[Caesalpinia pulcherrima (L.) Sw., Phaseolus luna-tus L., and Theobroma cacao L.]. It is clear that in atleast the latter two species (lima bean and cocoa,respectively), H. hampei is not a significant pest, asit would have been widely reported as such for thesesignificant crop species.
Another interesting issue that would need to beelucidated is whether a field survey would reveal theinsect in Dialium englerianum, and if so, whetherthe plant can be used as a trap, as proposed byGhesquière (1933). Finally, another important impli-cation of finding the alternative host plants forH. hampei is that these plants might reveal previ-ously unreported biological control agents (i.e. preda-tors, parasitoids, pathogens) that might be moreeffective in controlling the insect than thosecurrently being used.
Based on the findings presented here, the pursuitof H. hampei in the field in the alternative hostplants listed in Table 1 is being planned, under theleadership of J. Jaramillo, as part of a project fundedby the German Research Foundation (Deutsche For-schungsgemeinschaft). Once these alternative hostplants are located it will be essential to determine ifH. hampei can be found naturally infecting and com-pleting its life cycle in the fruits produced by theseplants. This will be the only way to ascertainwhether these plants do indeed serve as host plantsfor H. hampei, and not as exploratory or temporaryhosts in which reproduction and development doesnot occur. It will also be important to determinewhether H. hampei insects taken from these alter-native plants can complete their development incoffee berries: this information will provide insightson how the insect might have become adapted tothrive on Coffea fruits.
8 F. E. VEGA ET AL.
© 2012 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012, ••, ••–••
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank Harry K. Kaya (University of California,Davis) and three anonymous reviewers for theirhelpful comments. We give special thanks to LulúRico-Arce, Legume Specialist at the Royal BotanicGardens, for providing seed information on the Legu-minosae presented in Table 1.
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© 2012 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012, ••, ••–••