Comparison of Artificial Diets and Natural Prey for Mass Rearing of Orius strigicollis (Hemiptera: Anthocoridae) Using Demographic Characteristics to Optimize Cost-Efficiency

Orius strigicollis (Poppius) has been commonly released to control minute pests due to its remarkable foraging and predation ability. Despite decades long history of mass-rearing using eggs of Cadra cautella Walker (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) as food, the cost of this food impeded the predator's m...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of economic entomology 2021-08, Vol.114 (4), p.1523-1532
Main Authors: Hung, Yi-Ting, Yang, Chin-Cheng Scotty, Saska, Pavel, Tuan, Shu-Jen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age composition
age-stage two-sex life table
Artificial diets
Biological control
Cadra cautella
Diet
ECOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR
Instars
Mass rearing
meridic diet
oligidic diet
Orius strigicollis
Oviposition
Pest control
Pests
Population number
Predation
predator
Prey
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Summary:Orius strigicollis (Poppius) has been commonly released to control minute pests due to its remarkable foraging and predation ability. Despite decades long history of mass-rearing using eggs of Cadra cautella Walker (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) as food, the cost of this food impeded the predator's marketing potential. Finding cost-effective artificial diets for mass rearing programs is, therefore, the key to promote the use of this generalist predator in practice.The aim of this study was to explore suitability of alternative diets for mass rearing of this predator, using the age-stage, two-sex life table. Eight recipes of artificial diets were initially screened, and the candidate diets were subsequently evaluated using the population parameters of O. strigicollis.The highest intrinsic rate of increase was found in the O. strigicollis fed on the meridic combined Diet 1, where nymphs and adults were fed different diets. However, the intensive period of oviposition by females reared on oligidic Diet O3 contributed to the shorter rearing period (42 d) and lower rearing cost than that on combined Diet 1 (60 d). Besides, with the harvest rate of 0.919, the minimal population size of 10,774 individuals with a stable age-stage distribution was needed for daily harvesting 1,000 third instars of O. strigicollis reared on Diet O3 at the rearing cost of 0.295 NTD (newTaiwanese dollar) per nymph.Thus, Diet O3 was determined to be the most cost-effective recipe for the mass-rearing of O. strigicollis among those used in this study.
ISSN:0022-0493
1938-291X
DOI:10.1093/jee/toab112