Revealing of resistant sources in Cicer species to chickpea leaf miner, Liriomyza cicerina (Rondani) Fatma Oncu Ceylan & Hatice Sari & Duygu Sari & Alper Adak & Fedai Erler & Cengiz Toker Received: 4 April 2018 /Accepted: 8 October 2018 /Published online: 22 October 2018 # Springer Nature B.V. 2018 Abstract The chickpea leaf miner, Liriomyza cicerina (Rondani) (Diptera: Agromyzidae), is an important pest of cultivated chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.). A 2-year field study was carried out to screen a total of 126 Cicer germplasm for resistance to the leaf miner during the 2012 and 2013 growing seasons. Resistance was evalu- ated using a visual scale of 1–9, where 1 = highly resis- tant and 9 = very highly susceptible under natural infes- tation conditions. The results showed that two C. arietinum accessions, ILC 3397 and Sierra, had a score of 9 on the scale, being very highly susceptible. Three germplasm, one mutant (3304) and two breeding lines (LMR 140 and LMR 160) of C. arietinum, were found to be highly resistant with the scores ranging from 1.5 to 2 for resistance to the leaf miner. The mutant, 3304, was detected for the first time in this study as a highly leaf miner-resistant mutant of the cultivated chickpeas while the other two breeding lines had been previously reported as highly resistant against the leaf miner. In addition, two mutants and 14 breeding lines of C. arietinum and two mutants and one germplasm of C. reticulatum were identified as resistant having the scores from 2.1 to 3 on the 1–9 scale. The results suggest that these resistant germplasm may add a new dimension to chickpea breeding programs because they possess valuable traits for resistance against the pest. The resistant chickpeas that can be grown without using pesticides are important as environmental protection and reliable food source for human health. Keywords Chickpea . Cicer germplasm . Leaf miner . Liriomyza cicerina . Resistance Introduction The cultivated chickpea, Cicer arietinum L. is an im- portant food legume and the second rank after beans. It was harvested from an area of 12.7 million ha world- wide in 2017 (FAOSTAT 2018). Even if the cultivated chickpea has a yield potential of over 4000 kg per ha (Singh 1990; Singh et al. 1998), the actual yield is very low at 982 kg per ha (FAOSTAT 2018). The major reasons for the low and unstable yield in the chickpea are that the crop, like many other legumes, is grown in marginal areas and exposed to numerous biotic and abiotic stresses (Muehlbauer and Kaiser 1994,). One of the most important and influential factors among the biotic stresses is the chickpea leaf miner, Liriomyza cicerina (Rondani) (Diptera: Agromyzidae), in the Med- iterranean basin (Reed et al. 1987; Singh and Weigand 1994; El-Bouhssini et al. 2008; Cikman and Civelek 2006). Adult females of the leaf miner puncture both the upper and lower surfaces of leaves with their ovipositors to feed and lay their eggs. After a period of 4 days, the Phytoparasitica (2018) 46:635–643 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12600-018-0699-x F. O. Ceylan : H. Sari : D. Sari : A. Adak : C. Toker Department of Field Crops, Faculty of Agriculture, Akdeniz University, TR-07070 Antalya, Turkey F. Erler (*) Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Akdeniz University, TR-07070 Antalya, Turkey e-mail: erler@akdeniz.edu.tr