Scientific Opinion on the pest categorisation of Scirtothrips dorsalis

• Main Author: EFSA Panel on Plant Health (PLH)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2014-12-01
• Series: EFSA Journal
• Subjects: chilli thrips; yellow tea thrips; strawberry thrips; quarantine pest; regulated non‐quarantine pest; Scirtothrips dorsalis
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.2903/j.efsa.2014.3915

Abstract The EFSA Panel on Plant Health undertook a pest categorisation of the insect Scirtothrips dorsalis for the European Union. Although there are reports that this is a species complex and there are host‐specific races, it is generally treated as a distinct taxon. Both morphological and molecular methods are required to confirm identification. Apart from one long‐term outbreak in a botanic garden glasshouse in England, it is absent from the EU. Native to southern and eastern Asia, this species has been introduced to tropical and subtropical areas of Africa, Australasia and the Americas in recent years. It is highly polyphagous, with over 225 known hosts, which include many important EU crops. Southern areas of the EU are potentially suitable for outdoor establishment and it could establish in protected cultivation throughout the EU. Based on its phenology, the Panel showed that the climate in southern Europe could allow a similar number of generations to develop as in Japan and South Korea, where significant damage occurs to citrus and other crops outdoors. In protected cultivation, even though control methods used against other thrips species may be effective in keeping populations at low densities, damage can still occur at these densities owing to the transmission of tospoviruses. Despite being highly polyphagous, S. dorsalis is an insect listed in Annex IIAI of Council Directive 2000/29/EC only in relation to Citrus, Fortunella and Poncirus plants. These hosts are also regulated in Annex III and Annex V. They are also explicitly mentioned in Council Directive 2008/90/EC.