INTRODUCTION

Vineyards are an ancient Mediterranean agroecosystem, which spread all over the world in geographic areas with adequate climatic conditions. Wherever Vitis vinifera L. was introduced, it came into contact with new pests, such as the Nearctic phylloxerid Viteus vitifolii (Fitch) which also produced dramatic effects in the area of origin of this plant (Goidanich, 1960), and new biocoenoses were established (Vidano, 1988).

Grapevine pests are well known and have been thoroughly listed by Englert & Maixner (1992) for Europe, and by Delrio et al. (1989) and Pollini (1998) for Italy. Further studies on the main pests and their biocoenoses were made by Vidano (1988). On the other hand, only some guilds of useful insects have been studied in depth. This is the case, for example, of the parasitoids of Lobesia botrana (Denis & Schiffermüller) and Empoasca vitis (Göthe), about which there is a vast literature including, for the geographic area of our interest and for the many references cited, the papers by Vidano et al. (1988), Cerutti et al. (1989), and Marchesini & Dalla Montà (1994). Information on predators is on the other hand very scarce, and, with few exceptions, concerns mainly Orthoptera, anthocorids, mirids, and phytoseid mites (Duso & Girolami, 1983; Arzone et al., 1988; Camporese & Duso, 1996).

In most different geographic areas, lacewings are present on grapevines as predators of all the main groups of pests.