Paul Amouroux

• Agricultural Engineer and Ph.D. in Entomology
• Profesor asistente at Universidad Mayor

Pollination is an essential ecosystem service for pollinator-dependent crops and plant communities. Apis mellifera L. is by far the most commonly used species to obtain this service in agriculture. However, there is growing evidence of the importance for crop yields of the service provided by wild bees and non-bee insect pollinators. Establishing f...

Understanding the factors that affect native plant communities is essential to protect floristic diversity, particularly in Mediterranean agroecosystems. The Chilean Mediterranean-climate area supports high species richness and levels of endemism, and harbors the main fruit production. We investigated whether the richness of native and non-native f...

1 Flower strips can promote and conserve beneficial insects in agroecosystems. Knowingwhich groups are favoured and which plant traits affect visitation rates by beneficial insects is important for the design of plant strips. 2 We established 21 Native Flower Strips (NFS) in avocado orchards in Central Chile. NFS contained 7–11 plant species, with...

The rhodesgrass mealybug, Antonina graminis (Maskell, 1897), is reported for the first time from Chile, in the northern region of Tarapacá. This legless mealybug is widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions around the world, and yet mentioned in the neighbouring countries. It feeds on a large variety of grasses (Poaceae), and can be co...

To date, there are 74 described species of armoured scale insects (Hemiptera: Coccomorpha: Diaspididae) whose only known hosts are bamboos (Poaceae: Bambuseae) and 12 armoured scale insect genera that consist mainly or entirely of bamboo feeders. Fully 71 of the species and all 12 of the genera are native to Asia. Another region where bamboos domin...

Scale insects (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha: Coccomorpha) are key pests of agricultural crops and ornamental plants worldwide. Their populations are difficult to control, even with insecticides, due to their cryptic habits. Moreover, there is growing concern over the use of synthetic pesticides for their control, due to deleterious environmental effec...

Mango (Mangifera indica L.), a major fruit production in tropical and subtropical regions, is facing many production constraints. Mango yield is irregular across years, fruit quality is heterogeneous at harvest, and mango tree exhibits phenological asynchronisms within and between trees that result in long periods with phenological stages susceptib...

Scale insects (Hemiptera: Coccoidea) are key pests of agricultural crops and ornamental plants worldwide. Their populations are difficult to control, even with insecticides, due to their cryptic habits. Moreover, there is growing concern over the use of synthetic pesticides for their control, due to deleterious environmental effects and the emergen...

Scale insects (Sternorrhyncha: Coccoidea) are one of the most invasive and agriculturally damaging insect groups. Their management and the development of new control methods are currently jeopardized by the scarcity of identification data, in particular in regions where no large survey coupling morphological and DNA analyses have been performed. In...

Introduction: It has been suggested for nearly 40 years that understanding and controlling population genetics of biological control agents is an important tool for improvement of the efficiency of biocontrol. Be it in industrial mass-rearing or field conditions, population may indeed suffer from inbreeding depression or benefit from higher genetic...

The mango blossom gall midge, Procontarinia mangiferae, is a multivoltine species that induces galls in inflorescences and leaves of the mango tree, Mangifera indica. In subtropical Reunion Island, populations of P. mangiferae are observed all-year round, but the pattern and the role of dormancy in their life cycle have never been documented. We pe...

Introduction. The invasive gall midge, Procontarinia mangiferae (= Erosomyia mangiferae Felt), is one of the most important flowering pests of mango orchards worldwide. To achieve chemical input reduction, developing integrated pest management (IPM) strategies using bio-control agents is pertinent. Materials and methods. We tested the pathogenicity...

Introduction. The invasive gall midge, Procontarinia mangiferae (= Erosomyia mangiferae Felt), is one of the most important flowering pests of mango orchards worldwide. To achieve chemical input reduction, developing integrated pest management (IPM) strategies using bio-control agents is pertinent. Materials and methods. We tested the pathogenicity...

Mango blossom gall midge, Procontarinia mangiferae (=Erosomyia mangiferae Felt), is an invasive pest that causes economic damage worldwide. The objectives of our study were to highlight the genetic and ecological abilities of this monophagous gall midge to invade new habitats and to evaluate its genetic structure on an isolated island. This study,...

Les relations complexes qui unissent les insectes phytophages et les plantes peuvent être étudiées par des approches interdisciplinaires à diverses échelles. Ces études peuvent avoir un intérêt appliqué, dans l'agriculture notamment. Au cours de cette thèse, nous avons mené une étude interdisciplinaire sur la biologie de la cécidomyie des fleurs du...

The development of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) on mango requires the knowledge of the biological cycle of the main pests and of their relationships with the mango tree. Among them, the mango blossom gall midge, Procontarinia mangiferae (Felt), is a monophagous invasive pest of mango, causing economic damage by attacking inflorescences. The obj...

The development of Integrated Pest Management on mango requires the knowledge of the main pests, their biological cycle and their relationships with mango. The objective of this study was to survey pests in mango orchards on Reunion Island and to rank them according to the severity of damage produced. As flowering is a key stage for mango productio...

The development of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) on mango requires the knowledge of the biological cycle of the main pests and of their relationships with the mango tree. Among them, the mango blossom gall midge, Procontarinia mangiferae (Felt), is a monophagous invasive pest of mango, causing economic damage by attacking inflorescences. The obj...

Mango blossom gall midge, Procontarinia mangiferae (=Erosomyia mangiferae Felt), is an invasive pest that causes economic damage worldwide. The objectives of our study were to highlight the genetic and ecological abilities of this monophagous gall midge to invade new habitats and to evaluate its genetic structure on an isolated island. This study,...

This article documents the addition of 299 microsatellite marker loci and nine pairs of single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) EPIC primers to the Molecular Ecology Resources (MER) Database. Loci were developed for the following species: Alosa pseudoharengus, Alosa aestivalis, Aphis spiraecola, Argopecten purpuratus, Coreoleuciscus splendidus, Garra...

The estimation of Acridid (Orthoptera: Acrididae) density is the goal of a wide variety of conservation studies to monitor the impacts of grassland management or habitat change. The first aim of this paper was to study the influence of surveyors, time of the day and size/form of the box quadrat method on density values of Acridids in grassland habi...

Sampling methods to estimate acridid density per surface area unit in grassland habitats were compared using presence-absence data and count data. Sampling plans based on 6 yr of surveys were devised to estimate the density of Chorthippus spp., Euchorthippus spp., and Calliptamus italicus L. These acridids represented >90% of species in the study a...