Sikorska, D., Garnis, J., Dąbrowski, Z. T., Sikorski, P., Gozdowski, D. and Hopkins, R. J. ORCID: 0000-0003-4935-5825 (2019) Thus far but no further: predatory mites do not migrate effectively into strawberry plantations. Experimental and Applied Acarology, 77 (3). pp. 359-373. ISSN 0168-8162 (Print), 1572-9702 (Online) (doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10493-019-00357-5)

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Abstract

Enhancing the performance of predatory mites is often regarded as the best biological control approach towards the spider mite Tetranychus urticae, the main pest of strawberry plantations. Optimizing the colonization of plantations by predators from adjacent areas such as field margins is seen as an important component of conservation biocontrol. We have investigated the factors contributing to enhancing the numbers of predatory mites (Acari: Phytoseidae), such as management of the field margins, vegetation composition and the effect of the presence of woody species. We also tested the penetration of the phy-toseiids from the field margins into the crop. In a study carried out in 14 open-field exten-sively managed strawberry plantations in Poland we found phytoseiids to be abundant in field margins; 14 taxa were discovered. However, only two species Amblyseius andersoniand Euseius finlandicus dispersed a modest distance into the crop. We found that the diver-sity and densities of the predatory mites were enhanced somewhat by the management type of the field margins; especially the spontaneous vegetation favoured the presence of phyto-seiids. However, despite the predatory mites being rather retained in the field margins also significant reduction in numbers of their prey T. urticae was recorded over the course of the year. The low penetration of predatory mites into the main part of the field, indicates that conservation biological control measures in the field margin might not be sufficient on their own to enhance the impact of predatory mites within the main part of the fields.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2019. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Mites, IPM, Field Margins
Subjects:	S Agriculture > S Agriculture (General)
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Engineering & Science Faculty of Engineering & Science > Natural Resources Institute Faculty of Engineering & Science > Natural Resources Institute > Agriculture, Health & Environment Department
Last Modified:	24 Apr 2019 16:13
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/23396

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