Overview

Fundatrix overwinters in egg stage. Hosts are deciduous trees and vines mainly in families Juglandaceae, Fagaceae and Vitaceae. Blister-like galls on foliage in some genera. Phylloxeridae are predominantly monoecious. However, a few Phylloxera in Europe alternate between species of Quercus (Fagaceae) - rare instances of intrageneric heteroecy - and, in North America, between Carya (Juglandaceae) and Quercus or Castanea (Fagaceae) (Borner and Heinze 1957; Stoetzel 1985). Holarctic, with about 70 spp. world-wide.

Description

Hind wings without oblique veins. Facetted wax glands in 1 genus only. Anus absent. Ovipositor (small) in 1 species only. Parthenogenetic and sexual females oviparous.

Distribution

Daktulosphaira [= Viteus ] vitifolii , is the notorious grape phylloxera, a native of eastern and southern USA, which devastated the vine crops of Europe in the 1870s and 1880s after its accidental introduction there on imported American vines. On its natural hosts, e.g. Vitis riparia and V. rupestris , D. vitifolii is normally heteroecious between the leaves and roots. The fundatrix forms blister-like galls on the underside of leaves; its descendants are also gallicolous (gallicolae), or migrate to the roots (radicicolae) in increasing numbers as the leaves age, where they induce the formation of nodose and tuberose galls on the roots. Subsequent generations of radicicolae may hibernate as 1st instar nymphs, or produce alate sexuparae, the only alate morph in the cycle. The sexuparae emerge from the soil and produce the small, arostrate sexual females and males on nearby aerial parts of the vine. The resultant fertilised eggs overwinter. D. vitifolii is normally not injurious to these hosts.

On the European vine, V. vinifera , D. vitifolii is not holocyclic. This host is not acceptable to the highly host-specific fundatrix, but its roots are highly susceptible to the radicicolae, and continuous, anholocyclic reproduction may occur on the roots, often with damaging consequences.
Damage by phylloxera has been successfully controlled by the widespread use of phylloxera-resistant/tolerant rootstocks of American Vitis. D. vitifolii is present in Vic. and N.S.W., where it can be holocyclic when American rootstocks put up aerial suckers, but it has not been a serious problem for many years (Galet 1982; Buchanan and Hardie 1978).

Only two other phylloxerids are known from Australia, Phylloxerina salicis , a glanduliferous species on bark of Salix , and the tuberculate Moritziella corticalis on Quercus , also on bark. [Heinze 1962; Shaposhnikov 1967.]