| Life table parameters of Amblyseius swirskii (Acari: Phytoseiidae) on different pollen grains in comparison with factitious prey |
| Paper ID : 1271-3IICE (R1) |
| Authors: |
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Alireza Nemati *1, Elham Riahi2, Arsalan Khalili3, Payam Amini3, Mohammad Reza Bahari4 1Plant Protection Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Shahrekord University, Shahrekord, Iran 2Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Shahrekord University 3Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Shahrekord University, Shahrekord, Iran 4Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Shahrekord University, Shahrekord, Iran. |
| Abstract: |
| The presence of pollen as an alternative or supplementary food source, not only provides important nutrients including proteins, free amino acids, carbohydrates, lipids, vitamins, flavonoids, and minerals for predators, but also allows the predators to establish their population before the prey population. Furthermore, the ability of the predators to exploit more than one food item such as pollen may resulted in the better performance of generalist predators. The purpose of this study was to investigate the suitability of different diets including the pollen of apricot, pear, hollyhocks, common poppy, date palm, along with UV-radiated eggs of Ephestia kuehniella as food source for Amblyseius swirskii Athias-Henriot. Our results indicated that by contrast to egg and larval stages, other stages were significantly affected by the offering food items. In addition, feeding on hollyhocks pollen resulted in the mortality of entire population (100%). Food type influenced reproduction ability of females, as they did not reproduce when fed on common poppy during immature stages. Adult pre-oviposition period of A. swirskii varied significantly by feeding on different diets, being shorter on apricot pollen (3.10 ± 0.19 days) and factitious prey (2.76± 0.11 days) compared to that on pear (4.53 ± 0.33 days) and date palm (4.67 ± 0.23 days) pollen. Total number of eggs per female was highest when females were reared on factitious prey (37.71 ± 1.91 eggs); followed by apricot pollen (17.76 ± 1.38 eggs). Feeding on pear pollen and factitious prey caused the lowest (r= 0.0071 day-1 and λ= 1.0071 day-1) and highest population growth rate (r= 0.1223 day-1 and λ= 1.1301 day-1), respectively. Taking pollen diets only into account, it is revealed that apricot was the most preferable food items compared to other diets. Given intrinsic rate of increase, both apricot pollen and E. kuehniella eggs could be further utilized as a cost-effective alternative food diet for not only experimental but also commercial mass rearing of A. swirskii. |
| Keywords: |
| Amblyseius swirskii, Mass rearing, Phytoseiidae, Pollen, Ephestia kuehniella, Life table |
| Status : Paper Accepted (Oral Presentation) |
