Fauna of aphids and their coccinellid predators of wheat fields in Mashhad region (Razavi Khorasan province)

During a faunistic survey of wheat aphids and their coccinellid predators in 2006-2008 which was carried out for the first time in Mashhad region, using different sampling methods, 6 aphid species as well as 10 coccinellid species were collected and identified as follows: A) Aphid species: Sitobion avenae (Fabricius), Schizaphis graminum (Rondani), Metopolophium dirhodum (Walker), Diuraphis noxia (Mordvilko), Rhopalosiphum maidis (Fitch), Rhopalosiphum padi (L.); B) Coccinellid species: Hippodamia (=Adonia) variegata (Goeze), Oenopia conglobata contaminata (Montrouzier), Propylea quatuordecimpunctata (L.), Brumus undulatus (Weise), Exochomus nigromaculatus (Goeze), Scymnus apetzi)Mulsant (,Chilocorus bipustulatus (L.), Psyllobora vigintiduopunctata (L.), Coccinella septempunctata (L.), Coccinella magnopunctata)Rybakow). Among the identified aphid species in this study, Sitobion avenae and Schizaphis graminum with 53.1 and 29.5 percentage of population respectively were more abundant than other species. Among the collected coccinellids, the species Coccinella magnopunctata is new for fauna of Iran. The following coccinellid species, Coccinella septempunctata and Hippodamia variegata were more abundant and had higher distribution than the others. The coccinellid, Coccinella magnopunctata which was only collected from Akhengan, Toos and Golmakan was considered as a rare species in this study.