Suitability of date palm pollen as an alternative food source for the predatory mite Cydnoseius negevi (Swirski and Amitai) (Acari: Phytoseiidae) at a low relative humidity Fahad J. Alatawi, Jamal S. Basahih, Muhammad Kamran To cite this version: Fahad J. Alatawi, Jamal S. Basahih, Muhammad Kamran. Suitability of date palm pollen as an alternative food source for the predatory mite Cydnoseius negevi (Swirski and Amitai) (Acari: Phy- toseiidae) at a low relative humidity. Acarologia, Acarologia, 2018, 58 (2), pp.357-365. 10.24349/ac- arologia/20184247. hal-01715330 HAL Id: hal-01715330 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01715330 Submitted on 22 Feb 2018 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution - NoDerivatives| 4.0 International License Acarologia A quarterly journal of acarology, since 1959 Publishing on all aspects of the Acari All information: http://www1.montpellier.inra.fr/CBGP/acarologia/ [email protected] Acarologia is proudly non-profit, with no page charges and free open access Please help us maintain this system by encouraging your institutes to subscribe to the print version of the journal and by sending us your high quality research on the Acari. Subscriptions: Year 2018 (Volume 58): 380 € http://www1.montpellier.inra.fr/CBGP/acarologia/subscribe.php Previous volumes (2010-2016): 250 € / year (4 issues) Acarologia, CBGP, CS 30016, 34988 MONTFERRIER-sur-LEZ Cedex, France The digitalization of Acarologia papers prior to 2000 was supported by Agropolis Fondation under the reference ID 1500-024 through the « Investissements d’avenir » programme (Labex Agro: ANR-10-LABX-0001-01) Acarologia is under free license and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons-BY-NC-ND which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Suitability of date palm pollen as an alternative food source for the predatory mite Cydnoseius negevi (Swirski & Amitai) (Acari: Phytoseiidae) at a low relative humidity Fahad J. Alatawia , Jamal S. Basahiha , Muhammad Kamrana a Acarology Laboratory, Department of Plant Protection, College of Food & Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia. ABSTRACT The nutritional suitability of date palm pollen for the predatory mite Cydnoseius negevi (Swirski & Amitai) (Acari: Phytoseiidae) was tested by assessing the development and life table parameters of the predator at two relative humidity levels, 35 and 60 % RH, at 30 °C in the laboratory. C. negevi successfully developed and reproduced when fed on a fresh date palm pollen diet at both humidity levels. However, at 35 % RH, the incubation period and development of immatures were significantly longer, female longevity and fecundity significantly decreased, and all life table parameter values were negatively affected. The results obtained in this study were compared with those of some previously published studies in the same field. The date palm pollen could be a suitable food source for the mass production of C. negevi. Moreover, the successful reproduction and development of C. negevi fed date palm pollen at low RH (35 %) makes it a good alternate food source in the field to conserve the population of the predator under local arid environmental conditions. Keywords Biology, life table parameters, Cydnoseius negevi, Phytoseiidae, biological control Introduction Phytoseiid mites (Mesostigmata: Phytoseiidae) play an important role as biocontrol agents in different agro-ecosystems throughout the world (Helle and Sabelis, 1985; Gerson et al. 2003; McMurtry et al. 2013). Many phytoseiid species have been successfully introduced in crops to control phytophagous mites especially spider mites and other small insect pests (McMurtry et al. 2013). The phytoseiid mite, Cydnoseius negevi (Swirski & Amitai), is a common species in Received 17 June 2017 the Middle East (Abou-Awad et al. 1998; Palevsky et al. 2009; Hountondji et al. 2010). It is Accepted 11 November 2017 also widely distributed in Saudi Arabia and has been found to be abundant in date palm orchards Published 22 February 2018 along with the date palm mite Oligonychus afrasiaticus (McGregor) (Acari: Tetranychidae) Corresponding author (Negm et al. 2012a,b; Alatawi et al. 2017). However, the ability of this predator to control the Fahad J. Alatawi: date palm mite and other pests in fields has not been studied yet. [email protected] As a generalist facultative (type III) phytoseiid predator (Momen et al. 2009; McMurtry Academic editor et al. 2013), C. negevi is able to successfully develop and reproduce on a wide range of food Marie-Stéphane Tixier sources i.e., eriophyid and spider mites, thrips, and pollen of different plant species (Momen 1997; Momen et al. 2009; Negm et al. 2014; Hussein et al. 2016). Plant pollens contain DOI high contents of proteins and essential amino acids and serve as high nutritional quality food 10.24349/acarologia/20184247 for phytoseiid mites (Cook et al. 2003; Riahi et al. 2016, 2017). Therefore, plant pollens Copyright play an important role in the persistence and dynamics of many generalist predators (Hanna Alatawi F.J. et al. et al. 2005). The possibility of mass rearing a phytoseiid predator on alternative and more Distributed under Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 How to cite this article Alatawi F.J. et al. (2018), Suitability of date palm pollen as an alternative food source for the predatory mite Cydnoseius negevi (Swirski & Amitai) (Acari: Phytoseiidae) at a low relative humidity. Acarologia 58(2): 357-; DOI 10.24349/acarologia/20184247 economical diet such as pollen could increase the interest in that predator as a biocontrol agent (Castagnoli and Simoni 1999). The biology and life table of C. negevi, when feeding on pollen of different plant species and on some mites and insects under different temperatures and relative humidities in the laboratory have been investigated (Tables 4 and 5). However, the biological responses of C. negevi under low humidity, the general climate of Saudi Arabia (SA), have been poorly tested. The biology and life table parameters of several phytoseiid mite species feeding on date palm pollen have been studied so far, e.g., Amblyseius swirskii Athias-Henriot, Typhlodromus (Anthoseius) bagdasarjani Wainstein & Arutunjan (Abou-Elella et al. 2013; Riahi et al. 2016; 2017), Euseius scutalis (Athias-Henriot) (Al-Shammery 2011; Abou-Elella et al. 2013; Abou-Elella et al. 2014; Fouly et al. 2013), E. finlandicus (Oudemans) (Abou-Elella et al. 2014), and Proprioseiopsis asetus (Chant) (Fouly 1997) (Table 4). Moreover, several studies have been conducted on C. negevi feeding on different preys, e.g., tetranychid and eriophyid mites, and small insects (Table 5) (Momen 1997; Abou-Awad et al. 1989; Negm et al. 2014; Metwally et al. 2015) (Table 5). All these biological studies were conducted at high relative humidity, i.e., not less than 65 % RH. The aim of this study was to investigate the suitability of date palm pollen as an alternate food source for C. negevi at relatively low humidity level (35 % R.H.). This study could be used in predicting C. negevi colonization ability when date palm pollen provided as alternative food source at the time of releasing the predator in date palm orchards where relative humidity is low. Materials and methods Predator and prey diet source Cydnoseius negevi was collected from the bermuda grass, Cynodon dactylon L. (Poaceae), under the date palm trees, Phoenix dactylifera L. at Alammariah, Riyadh, SA, 24°48.354′N, 46°29.937′E, during September 2014. The C. negevi colony was then maintained in small arenas as described by Marafeli et al. (2011), placed in an incubator in the laboratory at 27 ± 2 °C and 65 ± 10 % RH and was fed on mostly date palm pollen and rarely on the two prey species, Tetranychus urticae Koch and O. afrasiaticus. The populations of O. afrasiaticus, collected from highly infested date palm trees and T. urticae collected from egg plants at King Saud University (KSU), were maintained on different grasses and common bean, Phaseolus vulgaris L. (Fabaceae) plants respectively in a growth chamber at the Department of Plant Protection, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, (KSU), Riyadh. Fresh date palm pollen was directly collected from male date palm trees, at KSU from March to April 2014. The open flowers of the male date palms were dried in the laboratory at 25°C and 30 % RH, shaken on a white paper, and the pollen was collected in small glass vials and stored in a refrigerator until their use (Al-Shammery 2011). Biology of Cydnoseius negevi fed on fresh date palm pollen in the laboratory The experiment was conducted during August–September 2015 in a climate controlled chamber (BINDER®, Germany) at 30 ± 2 °C, two relative humidity levels, 35 % ± 5 and 60 % ± 5, RH, 14 L:10 D in small experimental units following Marafeli et al. (2011), with a few modifications. The experimental units consisted of a black plastic lid (3 cm diameter) placed on a petri dish (9 cm diameter) without a cover. Wet cotton wool wrapped around the lid and distilled water was provided continuously in the Petri dish to prevent the mites from escaping. Wisps of cotton wool were placed on the arena to provide oviposition sites for the predator. Seventy-four replicates for each RH level were made. Two C. negevi eggs were transferred from the stock colony to each experimental cell using a fine brush.