Life history of Neoseiulus californicus (McGregor, 1954) (Acari: Phytoseiidae) fed with castor bean (Ricinus communisL.) pollen in laboratory conditions

Abstract

The predatory mite, Neoseiulus californicus (McGregor, 1954) (Acari: Phytoseiidae) is one of the principal natural enemies of tetranychid mites in several countries, promoting efficient control of those mites in several food and ornamental crops. Pest attacks such as that of the spider mite, Tetranychus urticae Koch, 1836 (Acari: Tetranychidae), is one of the problems faced by farmers, especially in the greenhouse, due to the difficulty of its control with the use of chemicals because of the development of fast resistance making it hard to control it. The objective of this work was to study the life history of the predatory mite N. californicus as a contribution to its mass laboratory rearing, having castor bean plant [Ricinus communis L. (Euphorbiaceae)] pollen as food, for its subsequent use as a natural enemy of T. urticae on a cultivation of greenhouse rosebushes. The studies were carried out in the laboratory, at 25 ± 2°C of temperature, 70 ± 10% RH and a 14 hour photophase. The biological aspects and the fertility life table were appraised. Longevity of 32.9 days was verified for adult females and 40.4 days for males. The intrinsic rate of increase (r m ) was 0.2 and the mean generation time (T) was 17.2 days. The population doubled every 4.1 days. The results obtained were similar to those in which the predatory mite N. californicus fed on T. urticae.

Reproductive parameters of Phytoseiulus macropilis (Banks) fed with Tetranychus urticae Koch (Acari: Phytoseiidae, Tetranychidae) in laboratory

“…The mean generation time was similar to the numbers reported by Silva et al (2005) for P. macropilis; by Canlas et al (2006), Escudero and Ferragut (2005), Marafeli et al (2014) and by Mesa et al (1990) for N. californicus; and by Vasconcelos et al (2008) for P. fragariae.…”

“…The finite rate of increase found (λ) was similar to the values found by Ali (1998) and Silva et al (2005) for P. macropilis; by Vasconcelos (2006) and Marafeli et al (2014) for N. californicus; and by Vasconcelos et al (2008) for P. fragariae, who also found similar net reproduction rate (R o ) values.…”

Soil mesostigmatid mites (Acari: Mesostigmata) inhabiting rose fields and neighboring vegetation in the Bogota plateau and their potential role as biological control agents of <i>Frankliniella occidentalis</i> (Insecta: Thysanoptera)

“…The long duration of the deutonymphal period, resulting in a prolonged immature phase of almost three weeks, seems uncommon. This period seems considerably longer than observed for other mites of the cohort Gamasina , possibly because of the lower temperature employed in the present study (21 o C) compared to other studies (close to 25 °C), on laelapids (Freire and Moraes 2007a;, Macrochelidae (Azevedo et al 2018), Phytoseiidae (McMurtry et al 1970Marafeli et al 2014;Fouly and Abdel-Baky 2015) and Rhodacaridae . In terms of prey consumption, this does not seem to be necessarily a problem, as our preliminary observations indicated that deutonymphs can kill almost the same number of pre-pupae and pupas as adults.…”

Laboratory assays on the effects of a novel acaricide, SYP-9625 on Tetranychus cinnabarinus (Boisduval) and its natural enemy, Neoseiulus californicus (McGregor)

“…In integrated pest management (IPM) systems, natural enemies and compatible acaricides can be applied in a conjunct group, and a proportion of studies tend to paying more attention to the toxicity of acaricides on predatory mites [ 3 – 7 ]. Based on the inter-population differences in the sensitivities of these natural enemies, Lima evaluated different acaricide toxicities against Neoseiulus barkeri (Hughes) and suggested that fenpyroximate and chlorfenapyr can be used together with the predatory mite application [ 4 , 8 ]. Recently, the sublethal effects of acaricides have been considered a more accurate approach to measure toxicity than direct contact toxicity [ 9 ].…”