insects Article Functional Response and Predation Rate of Dicyphus cerastii Wagner (Hemiptera: Miridae) Gonçalo Abraços-Duarte 1,2,* , Susana Ramos 1, Fernanda Valente 1,3, Elsa Borges da Silva 1,3 and Elisabete Figueiredo 1,2,* 1 Instituto Superior de Agronomia (ISA), Universidade de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017 Lisboa, Portugal;
[email protected] (S.R.);
[email protected] (F.V.);
[email protected] (E.B.d.S.) 2 Linking Landscape, Environment, Agriculture and Food (LEAF), Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Universidade de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017 Lisboa, Portugal 3 Forest Research Centre (CEF), Instituto Superior de Agronomia (ISA), Universidade de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017 Lisboa, Portugal * Correspondence:
[email protected] (G.A.-D.);
[email protected] (E.F.) Simple Summary: Biological control (BC) is an effective way to regulate pest populations in hor- ticultural crops, allowing the decrease of pesticide usage. On tomato, predatory insects like plant bugs or mirids provide BC services against several insect pests. Native predators are adapted to local conditions of climate and ecology and therefore may be well suited to provide BC services. Dicyphus cerastii is a predatory mirid that is present in the Mediterranean region and occurs in tomato greenhouses in Portugal. However, little is known about its contribution to BC in this crop. In this study, we evaluated how prey consumption is affected by increasing prey abundance on four different prey, in laboratory conditions. We found that the predator can increase its predation rate until a maximum is reached and that prey characteristics like size and mobility can affect predation.