The plants on which adult thrips can be collected
have been cited in the literature as host
plants (Mound and Teulon 1995), but adults frequently
inhabit flowers that are not reproductive
hosts. Adults of F. bispinosa
are abundant in the
flowers of bell pepper,
Capsicum annuum
L., in
Florida along with adults of other species, including
F. occidentalis
(Funderburk et al. 2000;
Hansen et al. 2003; Reitz et al. 2003). The suitability
of pepper as a reproductive host of
F. bispinosa
has not been determined, and the possible
role of
F. bispinosa
in TSWV epidemics is unknown.
The purpose of our research was to determine
the competence of
F. bispinosa
as a vector of
TSWV in pepper. An experiment was conducted
to determine the ability of
F. bispinosa
to reproduce
and acquire the virus on pepper compared to
the key vector,
F. occidentalis
. Another experiment
was conducted to verify that
F. bispinosa
adults are able to transmit the TSWV to uninfected
pepper.