''Hypothenemus hampei'', the coffee berry borer or coffee borer beetle, is a small

beetle Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

native to Africa. It is among the most harmful pests to

coffee Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. Seeds of ...

crops across the world where coffee is cultivated.

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

common names of the insect include ''barrenador del café'', ''gorgojo del café'', and ''broca del café''.

Description

Females have two larval stages and males only one. They have strong

mandible In anatomy, the mandible, lower jaw or jawbone is the largest, strongest and lowest bone in the human facial skeleton. It forms the lower jaw and holds the lower teeth in place. The mandible sits beneath the maxilla. It is the only movable bone ...

s, and their larval phase lasts 10 to 26 days. The adults are small black beetles. Females are 1.4–1.8 mm long. The males are 1.2–1.6 mm long. Female beetles can fly short distances; males have rudimentary wings. ''H. hampei'' is confused sometimes with the false coffee berry borer ('' H. obscurus'' or '' H. seriatus'') and '' Xylosandrus'' (Scolytidae), but these species do not enter the coffee bean endosperm.

Life cycle

The maturation of the insect (from egg to adult) lasts between 24 and 45 days, varying according to the weather. Usually, the female drills the berry through the central disc, although it can enter through the side walls if the fruit is dry. Two days after the access, the beetle lays 35–50 eggs, which produce 13 females for each male. The lifespan for females is 35–190 days and for males 40 days. The new insects mate inside the seed. Some females lay the eggs in the same coffee plant, others colonize new ones. The males never leave the fruit. The same plant can host three to five generations of beetles. Up to 100 beetles can be found in a single fruit. The insect is very sensitive to desiccation, and waits for the rains to leave the fruit. The most affected areas in the crops are the shady and moist ones.

Colonisation

The main host of ''H. hampei'' is '' Coffea arabica'', but other coffee species have been affected in some cases. The female beetles attack the fruits from 8 weeks past the flowering to 32 weeks. When the insect enters, it builds galleries in the endosperm where the eggs are deposited.

Distribution

The insect is endemic to central Africa and has now spread to most coffee-producing countries through the accidental introduction of contaminated seeds. The first report in the American continent were in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

(1926). In the 1970s, it affected Guatemala and

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. The beetle entered Colombia during the late 1980s. It entered the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...

in the 1990s. It was detected in

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...

in August 2007. It was discovered in Kona ( Big Island),

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

in August 2010.

Genome and caffeine detoxification

The draft genome of the coffee berry borer consists of ca. 163 million base pairs (Vega et al. 201

Caffeine demethylase has been shown to be responsible for caffeine breakdown in the alimentary canal of the insect (Ceja-Navarro et al. 201

Pest management

The presence of the insect affects the economy of over 20 million families that depend on the coffee harvest. Due to the losses in yield and quality caused by the insect, growers end up losing significant amounts of income. The main pest management strategies involve different components, including monitoring, controlled harvest, and the use of biological control agents.

Prevention

Prevention is based in the careful inspection of the coffee beans before leaving the coffee farms to avoid spreading of the insects. Also, a number of border controls has been established in countries with coffee crops.

Chemical control

Insecticides are useful only before the female beetle penetrates the berry. Resistance to endosulfan, which has been banned in many countries, has been reported in New Caledonia.

Biological control

Biological control methods use the natural enemies of the coffee berry borer to reduce the population. Pest management through biological control can utilize predators, parasites and diseases that attack the larvae or adult beetles.

Birds

During the time when beetle offspring emerge from each commercially ruined berry to disperse, they are vulnerable to predation. The

yellow warbler The yellow warbler (''Setophaga petechia'') is a New World warbler species. Yellow warblers are the most widespread species in the diverse genus ''Setophaga'', breeding in almost the whole of North America, the Caribbean, and down to northern S ...

, rufous-capped warbler, and other insectivorous birds have been shown t
reduce by 50%
the number of coffee berry borers in Costa Rican coffee plantations.

Parasitoids

The parasitoids used to control the borer beetle are Hymenoptera (wasps) native to Africa. Although they have a low impact in the beetle population, the use of biological controls allows the product to qualify as

organic food Organic food, ecological food or biological food are food and drinks produced by methods complying with the standards of organic farming. Standards vary worldwide, but organic farming features practices that cycle resources, promote ecological ...

. *Bethylid parasitoids ( Bethylidae): '' Cephalonomia stephanoderis'' Betrem and '' Prorops nasuta''

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were introduced in some

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

n countries from Africa during the 1980s and 1990s with low success. In the late 1990s, the ''C. hyalinipennis'' native of North America was described as attacking the borer beetle in Chiapas, south of Mexico. This species preys on the eggs of ''H. hampei''. Another useful betylid is '' Sclerodermus cadavericus'' Benoit, but its management is difficult, since it is an aggressive wasp and can cause severe

dermatitis Dermatitis is inflammation of the skin, typically characterized by itchiness, redness and a rash. In cases of short duration, there may be small blisters, while in long-term cases the skin may become thickened. The area of skin involved can ...

. *'Eulophid parasitoids (

Eulophidae The Eulophidae are a large family of hymenopteran insects, with over 4,300 described species in some 300 genera. The family includes the genus '' Elasmus'', which used to be treated as a separate family, "Elasmidae", and is now treated as a s ...

): '' Phymastichus coffea'' was discovered in

Togo Togo (), officially the Togolese Republic (french: République togolaise), is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its c ...

in 1987. It attacks the adult beetle, and mass-rearing in Colombia has been successful. It has a capacity to stay in the coffee crops for a long time. *Braconid parasitoids (

Braconidae The Braconidae are a family of parasitoid wasps. After the closely related Ichneumonidae, braconids make up the second-largest family in the order Hymenoptera, with about 17,000 recognized species and many thousands more undescribed. One analysis ...

): '' Heterospilus coffeicola'' Schmiedeknecht was observed in

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sou ...

, but its reproduction in laboratories has been unsuccessful.

Insect predators

Ants ( Hymenoptera: Formicidae) have been reported as predators of ''H. hamper'' but they do not control the insect. Research at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones de Café ( Cenicafé, Colombia) reported other insect families as predators: Anthocoridae (Hemiptera) and Cucujidae (Coleoptera). The following are the genus and species that have been reported to attack the borer beetle: *Formicidae: '' Solenopsis'', ''

Pheidole ''Pheidole'' is a genus of ants that belongs to the ant subfamily Myrmicinae. The genus is widespread and ecologically dominant. It probably includes more than 1000 species. The genus first evolved in the Americas, eventually spreading across t ...

'', '' Wasmannia'', ''

Paratrechina ''Paratrechina'' is one of seven ant genera (alongside ''Euprenolepis, Nylanderia, Paraparatrechina, Prenolepis, Pseudolasius,'' and ''Zatania'') in the ''Prenolepis'' genus-group from the subfamily Formicinae (tribe Lasiini). Six species are ...

'', ''

Crematogaster ''Crematogaster'' is an ecologically diverse genus of ants found worldwide, which are characterised by a distinctive heart-shaped gaster (abdomen), which gives them one of their common names, the Saint Valentine ant. Members of this genus are ...

'', '' Brachymyrmex'' and ''

Prenolepis ''Prenolepis'' is a genus of ants in the subfamily Formicinae. Most species are found in southeastern Asia and southern China, but the genus has a wide distribution with species known from North America, southern Europe, Anatolia, Cuba, Haiti, ...

'' *Anthocoridae: ''Calliodes'' and ''Scoloposcelis'' *Cucujidae: ''Cathartus quadricollis'' (Guérin-Méneville)

Nematodes

Metaparasitylenchus hypothenemi ''Metaparasitylenchus hypothenemi'' (Nematoda: Allantonematidae) is a free-living nematode parasite that infects coffee berry borers (''Hypothenemus hampei''), small beetles that harm coffee crops worldwide. This nematode has been shown to inter ...

'' (Nematoda: Allantonematidae) has been reported in Mexico. A ''Panagrolaimus'' sp. has been reported in the field in India. In laboratory experiments, ''Heterorhabditis'' sp. and ''Steinernema feltiae'' have been shown to infect the insect.

Fungal entomopathogens

'' Beauveria bassiana'' infection causes high mortality of the insect and products have been developed in Colombia and elsewhere. Other fungi recorded to attack CBB include: ''

Hirsutella ''Hirsutella'' is a genus of asexually reproducing fungi in the Ophiocordycipitaceae family. Originally described by French mycologist Narcisse Théophile Patouillard in 1892, this genus includes species that are pathogens of insects, mites and ne ...

eleutheratorum'', ''

Isaria ''Isaria'' is a genus of fungi mostly in the order Hypocreales and family Clavicipitaceae, or by some authorities the Cordycipitaceae. It includes a large number of entomopathogenic species, some of them exploited as biopesticides (''e.g. I. ...

'' sp. (previously placed in the genus ''Paecilomyces''), and ''

Metarhizium ''Metarhizium'' is a genus of entomopathogenic fungi in the Clavicipitaceae family. With the advent of genetic profiling, placing these fungi in proper taxa has now become possible. Most turn out to be the asexual forms (anamorphs) of fungi in ...

'' sp.