SPECIAL FEATURE: REVIEW Alien pests threatening biodiversity of forest ecosystems Introduced Eucalyptus psyllids in Brazil Dalva Luiz de Queiroz Santana Æ Daniel Burckhardt Received: 1 March 2006 / Accepted: 20 June 2007 / Published online: 14 September 2007 Ó The Japanese Forest Society and Springer 2007 Abstract In the last 10 years, four species of psyllid were detected in Brazil on eucalypts: Ctenarytaina spatulata in 1994, Blastopsylla occidentalis in 1997, Ctenarytaina eucalypti in 1998 and Glycaspis brimblecombei in 2003. The latter two are serious pests in several countries. In Brazil, G. brimblecombei caused significant damage to the eucalypt plantations in the first years of its introduction. Now this pest is under control due to the programmes of integrated pest management, where the parasitoid is the principal control agent. The four eucalypt psyllid species introduced into Brazil are presented with information on distribution, hosts, biology and control. Keywords Blastopsylla occidentalis Á Ctenarytaina eucalypti Á Ctenarytaina spatulata Á Eucalypt pests Á Glycaspis brimblecombei Introduction Many eucalypt species find suitable weather and environ- mental conditions to develop in Brazil. Today eucalypts are commercially grown on a large scale, covering an esti- mated surface of over 3 million hectares. The native myrtaceous trees of Brazil host an abundant fauna of phytophages, some of which attack eucalypts. There is also an increasing number of exotic pests such as the Australian eucalypt psyllids. Psyllids or jumping plant-lice (Hemiptera: Psylloidea) are tiny sap-sucking insects of 1–10 mm body length resembling minute cicadas (Hodkinson 1988; Burckhardt 1994). World-wide some 3,500 species have been described, most of which develop on woody dicotyledons. Larvae of many species, such as Ctenarytaina eucalypti, are free-liv- ing, sometimes covered in waxy secretions or sitting in the buds of leaves or flowers. Some psyllid species induce galls on their host plants (Hodkinson 1984; Burckhardt 2005) or build waxy coverings called lerps (Hollis 2004). Depending on the climatic conditions, psyllid species of the temperate regions tend to be univoltine or bivoltine, and those of the tropics, as in Brazil, polyvoltine, with several overlapping generations per year (Burckhardt 1994; Hollis 2004). The tribe Spondyliaspidini (Psyllidae) is almost exclu- sively restricted to Australia, and most of the constituent species develop on Eucalyptus and other Myrtaceae (Bur- ckhardt 1991). Unsurprisingly, several species of Australian Spondyliaspidini have been introduced into other continents where eucalypts are planted on a large scale (Taylor 1997; Hollis 2004). In Brazil, the first spondyliaspidine, a Ctenarytaina species, was observed in 1994 in Eucalyptus grandis plan- tations in Parana ´ State (Iede et al. 1997). These insects were identified and described by Taylor (1997) as Ctenarytaina spatulata Taylor (Burckhardt et al. 1999). C. spatulata develops on several eucalypt species. In Brazil it prefers the most widely planted eucalypt species, E. grandis. In Brazil another three species infesting eucalypts have been discovered in the last 10 years: Blastopsylla occi- dentalis in 1997, C. eucalypti in 1998 and Glycapis brimblecombei in 1998 (Maschio et al. 1997; Burckhardt et al. 1999). D. L. de Queiroz Santana (&) Forest Entomology, Embrapa Florestas Estrada da Ribeira, Km 111, CP 319-83.411-000 Colombo, PR-Brazil e-mail: dalva@cnpf.embrapa.br D. Burckhardt Naturhistorisches Museum, Entomologie, Basel, Switzerland 123 J For Res (2007) 12:337–344 DOI 10.1007/s10310-007-0035-7