A review of the natural enemies of the red palm mite, Raoiella indica (Acari: Tenuipalpidae)

Abstract

A review of all the available information about the natural enemies reported in association with the red palm mite, Raoiella indica is presented. Twenty-eight species of predatory arthropods, including mites and insects, have been reported in association with R. indica in Asia, Africa and the Neotropics. In addition, pathogenic fungi associated with R. indica in the Caribbean have been reported. The available literature indicates that each site has a different natural enemy complex with only one predator species, Amblyseius largoensis (Acari: Phytoseiidae), present in all the geographical areas. The phytoseiids, Amblyseius caudatus Berlese, Amblyseius channabasavanni Gupta and A. largoensis, were regarded as important natural enemies of R. indica, and their predatory efficiency was studied in some detail. Among the predatory insects the coccinellids Stethorus keralicus Kapur and Telsimia ephippiger Chapin were reported as major predators of R. indica. The known distribution, abundance and relative importance of each species reported in association with R. indica are discussed.

Comparison of two populations of the pantropical predator Amblyseius largoensis (Acari: Phytoseiidae) for biological control of Raoiella indica (Acari: Tenuipalpidae)

“…As explained in that paper, a survey was conducted in La Réunion given that the pest was known to occur in that island at a level that did not cause major damage to the coconut plants. This same species has also been found in many other countries in association with the red palm mite (Carrillo et al 2012c), including Roraima State (our unpublished data). A. largoensis is also predominant on palms and other plant species in the New World (Moore and Howard 1996;Gondim and Moraes 2001;Moraes et al 2004;Lawson-Balagbo et al 2008).…”

<p class="HeadingRunIn"><strong>Prey consumption and functional response of <em>Neoseiulus</em> californicus and <em>Neoseiulus longispinosus</em> (Acari: Phytoseiidae) on <em>Tetranychus urticae</em> and <em>Tetranychus kanzawai </em>(Acari: Tetranychidae)</strong></p>

“…It is widely distributed and has been commercially used in various countries around the world (Gotoh et al 2004;Canlas et al 2006;McMurtry et al 2013;Barbosa & de Moraes 2015). Neoseiulus longispinosus (Evans) is another efficient phytoseiid mite of large number of mite pests, and this species has primarily an Asian distribution (Zhang et al 1998;Thongtab et al 2001;Carrillo et al 2012;Rahman et al 2013).…”

Testing prey DNA fingerprinting on Amblyseius largoensis (Acari: Phytoseiidae) predation of Raoiella indica (Acari: Tenuipalpidae)

“…Amblyseius largoensis is a generalist predator able to reproduce when feeding on insects, mites, or pollen (McMurtry and Croft 1997;Yue and Tsai 1996), is often found on the same plants as R. indica (Carrillo et al 2012c;Taylor et al 2012), and as previously mentioned, preys on this species. Raoiella indica is a phytophagous mite native to India (Jeppson et al 1975) that recently invaded the New World (Kane et al 2005;Rodrigues et al 2007, Vásquez et al 2008, causing considerable damage mainly to coconut palms (Cocos nucifera) and bananas (Musa spp.…”