First Record of Native Egg Parasitoid, Anastatus Bifasciatus, on Halyomorpha halys eggs (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) in Turkey

Halyomorpha halys (Stål, 1855) (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae), the brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB), is an alien invasive pest that originated from South Asia (China, Japan, Taiwan, Korea) (Hoebeke and Carter 2003). Many studies have shown that the number of invasions by pests has increased significantly in the last 5 centuries and the reason for this situation is directly related to human activities. (Pascal, Le Guyader et al. 2010). Halyomorpha halys is considered to be a dangerous pest insect species due to economic losses in agricultural areas of the countries where it is distributed. It has been observed that the pest can have 1–2 generations per year (Rice, Bergh et al. 2014) and each egg mass contains of an average of 26 eggs and, furthermore, causes significant losses in many crops such as bean, hazelnut and pear. This study was conducted between July and August in 6 different areas and a total of 18 egg masses that were thought parasitized were collected from BMSB infested fields and kept in tubes to determine if they had parasitoids. Emerged parasitoids were fed with the honey solution and bred in tubes. The specimens were identified as Anastatus bifasciatus morphologically, however, they were sent for molecular identification to the USA, and the molecular test confirmed the identification. In this study, Anastatus bifasciatus was reported as the first parasitoid recorded on Halyomorpha halys in Turkiye.