Resistance of Boxwood Varieties to the Boxwood Leafminer, Monarthropalpus flavus (Schrank)
A survey of nine cultivars of Buxus at the United States National Arboretum revealed significant differences in levels of infestation by the boxwood leafminer, Monarthropalpus flavus (Schrank). An analysis of larval survival confirmed high levels of susceptibility in Buxus sempervirens ‘Myrtifolia’ and Buxus microphylla ‘National’ while B. sempervirens ‘Handsworthiensis’ and B. sempervirens ‘Vardar Valley’ exhibited high levels of resistance. Other varieties exhibited intermediate levels of resistance. Field surveys and laboratorystudies indicated that female flies deposited eggs in all cultivars even highly resistant ones. This lack of preference suggests that the mechanism of resistance is antibiosis or phenological asynchrony rather than antixenosis.Abstract
Contributor Notes
2Graduate Assistant, Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742. Current address: Global Integrity, 12100 Sunset Hills Rd., Suite 200, Reston, VA 20190.
3Professor and Extension Specialist, Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742. We are most grateful to Dr. Lynn Batdorf of the United States National Arboretum who provided invaluable insights into the boxwoods used in this study. We thank Saunders Brothers, Inc., 2508 Tye Brook Highway, Piney River, VA 22964 for providing the boxwoods used in the greenhouse study. We are grateful to the United States National Arboretum for providing study sites for this research. John Davidson, Lee Hellman, Galen Dively, and two anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript. This work was funded in part by the Chesapeake Bay Program of the Environmental Protection Agency and a grant from Longwood Gardens. Although this work was funded in part by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, it does not necessarily reflect the position or opinion of the EPA.