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Combination of the antifeedant bean flour and the predator Cheyletus malaccensis suppresses storage mites under laboratory conditions

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Abstract

Stored product mites are pests of serious economic and medical importance. Recently, it has been shown that the biological control of these pests based on the use of natural compounds and predators had a high potential for success. In this study, we investigated the suppression of three pest mites by combination of the predator Cheyletus malaccensis Oudemans, 1913 and bean flour (Phaseolus vulgaris), which is an antifeedant. Wheat grain (100 g) was contaminated with 100 individuals (Acarus siro (Linnaeus, 1758), Aleuroglyphus ovatus (Troupeau, 1878) or Tyrophagus putrescentiae (Schrank, 1781)). We added bean flour in concentrations of 0, 1, 5 and 10 g kg−1 (wt/wt) and/or the predator with initial predator/prey ratios 0, 1/50, 1/25 and 1/10. The experiment was carried out under abiotic conditions that are optimal for pest development. After 21 days, pest and predators numbers were recorded. Application of flour significantly reduced populations of A. siro, slightly reduced populations of T. putrescentiae, the efficiency increased with increasing concentration. A. ovatus was not affect by bean flour. Populations of all mite species were successfully reduced by the sole addition of C. malaccensis, with a higher efficiency at higher Cheyletus ratios. The additive effect of the predator and flour was mainly apparent in the reduction of T. putrescientae. The population of C. malaccensis was not affected by the presence of bean flour. It is therefore recommended to use bean flour for the reduction of A. siro, a combination of bean flour and Cheyletus for the reduction of T. putrescientae, and only Cheyletus for the reduction of A. ovatus.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Marta Nesvorná and Šárka Tučková, Pavel Horák for excellent technical assistance and Eva Žďárková and Václav Stejskal for valuable comments on the experiments. Last but not least the authors are grateful to anonymous reviewers for useful comments and to the editor for additional improvement of the text. SP was supported by project no. 0021622416 from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic. JH received support from the Ministry of Agriculture, Czech Republic (project no. 0002700603) and 2B08049 of the Czech Ministry of Education Youth and Sport.

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  1. Research Crop Research Institute, Drnovská 507, Praha 6, Ruzyne, 16106, Czech Republic

    Jan Hubert

  2. Department of Botany and Zoology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotlářská 2, Brno, 611 37, Czech Republic

    Stano Pekár

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  1. Jan Hubert
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Correspondence to Jan Hubert.

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Handling Editor: Arne Janssen.

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Hubert, J., Pekár, S. Combination of the antifeedant bean flour and the predator Cheyletus malaccensis suppresses storage mites under laboratory conditions. BioControl 54, 403–410 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10526-008-9200-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10526-008-9200-y

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