Feeding ecology of green lacewings

• Ano de defesa: 2016
• Autor(a) principal: Batista, Michela Costa
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal de Viçosa
• Palavras-chave em Português: Chrysopidae; Inseto nocivo - Controle biológico; Pragas agrícolas - Controle biológico; Manjericão; Ciências Agrárias; Agronomia; Fitossanidade; Entomologia Agrícola
• Link de acesso: http://www.locus.ufv.br/handle/123456789/11859

Biological control is a pest management strategy that relies on the action of natural enemies to control the populations of herbivores, minimizing their damage on cultivated areas. For natural enemies to find and establish in a cropping area to provide biological control services they need to be attracted to the area, survive, reproduce, and be capable of preying on the pests present in the crop. Usually, natural enemy attraction is direct or indirectly linked with feeding needs. Once attracted to the area, the food resources in the crop and surroundings must be suitable to promote population growth and establishment of natural enemies populations. Therefore, the aim of this thesis was to understand key aspects of the feeding ecology of green lacewings, generalist predators naturally found in agroecosystems and commonly commercialized as biological control agents. On Chapter I, we assessed the attractiveness of aromatic plant species to Ceraeochrysa cabana Hagen, a lacewing species with a broad geographical range that can be found in several cropping systems. Additionally, we tested the effects of those aromatic plants on survival and performance of larvae and adults of C. cabana, in order to elucidate the importance of such plant species to the establishment of green lacewing populations. We found that non-flowering and uninfested Ocimam basilicam (basil) plants were attractive to C. cabana, and that larvae could survive for a longer period of time in O. basilicam leaves compared to the other aromatic plant species tested. Additionally, O. basilicam flowers promoted a long survival for larvae and adults of C. cabana, compared to the negative control (water). Results indicate that using O. basilicam as a diversification component in cultivated areas may be beneficial to attract and maintain C. cabana populations to support biological control. On chapter II, we studied the diet breadth of Chrysoperla rafilabris Burmeister, a green lacewing commonly used and commercialized as a biological control agent, over 16 aphid species, assessing the quality of those species on survival and fitness of this generalist predator. Results demonstrated that C. rafilabris preyed over all the aphid species, but could develop and produce eggs only in seven species, most of them from the same cluster in a phylogenetic tree. We also found a strong phylogenetic signal for survival, aphid consumption and egg load of C. rafilabris, indicating that most of the species more suitable to C. rufilabris were closely related, which demonstrate that this green lacewing species is less generalist than it was supposed. Thus, C. rufilabris may not benefit from a broad prey range and that has to be taken into consideration when planning biological control strategies using this green lacewing species. In conclusion, knowledge on the feeding ecology of biological control agents is essential before choosing the species to be released or that to be attracted to and to maintain in the cropping system. In this sense, O. basilicum is a promising aromatic plant species to attract and maintain lacewing populations in the field. Additionally to attractiveness, it is important to consider prey phylogeny in the study of generalist predators diet breadth in order to have better results in biological control programs.