Metodi di campionamento a confronto delle cicaline dell’agroecosistema vigneto.

Many species of leafhoppers and planthoppers are serious pests because of their direct feeding injury as well as for their role as vectors in trasmission of plant pathogens. The spread of hopper-transmitted pathogens depends also on the abundance of insect vectors and their plant-to-plant movement. Sampling techniques that measure overall activity of leafhoppers and planthoppers movement may therefore be useful in estimating relative population dynamics and thus in predicting the incidence of insect-transmitted pathogens. Results of a two years survey conducted in three vineyard agroecosystems of the Marche region (central-eastern Italy) are briefly explained. The main objective was the comparison of three different methods (yellow sticky traps placed at 10 cm and 150 cm above ground and sweep net) used to sample leafhoppers and planthoppers. A total of 32,000 specimens were identified. About seventy species were identified, 60 Cicadomorpha and 10 Fulgoromorpha. The different sampling methods allowed us to discriminate the captures of both species sampled and frequency of specimens for each species. A profile of the leafhopper and planthopper fauna of different vineyard agroecosystems of the Marche region was also defined.