title: Functional and Numerical Responses of Three Species of Predatory Phytoseiid Mites (Acari: Phytoseiidae) to Thrips flavidulus (Thysanoptera: Thripidae).
abstract: Phytoseiid mites are considered the most effective natural enemies of pest mites. They also have been shown to attack pest thrips. It is unknown, however, whether phytoseiid mites can reduce high densities of Thrips flavidulus (Bagnall). We addressed this question by the study of functional and numerical responses. The aim of this research was to evaluate the potential predation success of the adults of three predatory mites, Neoseiulus cucumeris (Oudemans), Neoseiulus barkeri (Hughes), and Euseius nicholsi (Ehara & Lee), against the first-instar of T. flavidulus in a climatic chamber at five different temperatures. The results showed that the functional responses of those predators reflected the Holling type II functional response and were density dependent and positively related to temperature. For the three predatory mites, predation and successful attack rates increased with increasing temperature up to 26°C, reducing afterward. Handling time had the opposite trend. Reproductive ability also increased with an increase in temperature and prey consumption.
authors.affiliation: State Key Lab of Agricultural Microbiology, Hubei Key Lab of Insect Resource Application and Sustainable Pest Control, and Institute of Urban and Horticultural Pests, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural Univ, Wuhan, Hubei, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.affiliation: State Key Lab of Agricultural Microbiology, Hubei Key Lab of Insect Resource Application and Sustainable Pest Control, and Institute of Urban and Horticultural Pests, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural Univ, Wuhan, Hubei, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: State Key Lab of Agricultural Microbiology, Hubei Key Lab of Insect Resource Application and Sustainable Pest Control, and Institute of Urban and Horticultural Pests, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural Univ, Wuhan, Hubei, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tariq
authors.affiliation: State Key Lab of Agricultural Microbiology, Hubei Key Lab of Insect Resource Application and Sustainable Pest Control, and Institute of Urban and Horticultural Pests, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural Univ, Wuhan, Hubei, People's Republic of China. hongyu.zhang@mail.hzau.edu.cn.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D008925:Mites; D010572:Pest Control, Biological; D011157:Population Dynamics; D011235:Predatory Behavior; D013696:Temperature; D061149:Thysanoptera
keywords: Biological control; Euseius nicholsi; Neoseiulus barkeri; Neoseiulus cucumeris; thrips