Monitoring an invasive species, Thrips parvispinus population in southern Florida pepper

Biological invasions can be considered as a major threat to biodiversity and the stability of ecosystems, among these invasive species Thrips the most important agricultural pests around the world. Recently, the invasive thrips species, Thrips parvispinus, has emerged as a serious pest in southern Florida agricultural areas. Since its first report in Orange County, Florida, in 2020 T. parvispinus has rapidly become a major challenge for pepper production, causing substantial feeding damage to flowers, leaves and fruits, reducing crops’ market quality and increasing yield losses. Over the years, thrips have become a hard pest to eliminate easily, on top of that, The limited information regarding this specific new pest makes their management even more challenging. Therefore, there is an urgent need to understand their biology and ecology to develop an integrated pest management program (IPM) for T. parvispinus. The first step of IPM is monitoring or field scouting to understand the pest pressure. Therefore, thrips populations were surveyed during the 2024-2025 growing season in Palm Beach County agricultural area. Leaves and flower samples in addition to
pan trap samples have been collected from three different pepper fields. Samples were then processed and the number of thrips were counted in the laboratory under a microscope. The results aim to understand how T. parvispinus population fluctuates during growing seasons. Additionally, other thrips species present in the field will be identified to understand thrips composition and how different thrips species potentially interact with each other.