Abstract
Thrips are among the most important pests in greenhouses worldwide because of recurrent outbreaks of both native and invading species. Yet, their biodiversity, distribution and ecology remain still poorly documented, probably because of their small size, the high morphological similarity between taxa and their discretion apart from the outbreak in crops. In this study, we thus developed a so-called DNABarcoding approach coupling, on one side, the sequencing of some molecular markers - e.g. a part of the mitochondrial marker Cytochrome Oxidase I (COI) – and, on the other, the precise examination of some morphological characters. Thanks to a collaborative network, several thousands of samples were hence collected in or around crops and more than 1000 individuals were characterized, making it possible (i) to clarify the actual diversity of thrips in these agroecosystems, ii) to focus on some particular (risky and/or invading) species, iii) to design a fast, simple and low cost molecular diagnostic tool for their identification.