Biology and functional Response of Andrallus spinidens (F) to the rice army worm Spodoptera mauritia (Boisduval)

Abstract

ABSTRACT:The pentatomid bug, Andrallus spinidens (F.), is a polyphagous predator on lepidopteran larvae in rice fields in India. The basic biology and predatory potential of the bug was studied under laboratory conditions. The nymphs were reared in petri dishes and were fed 3 rd to 5 th instar Spodoptera mauritia (Boisduval) larvae. The mean development period from egg to adult was 21 days. Eggs were laid in batches of 45 to 95 and the mean total number of eggs laid by each female was 259. The second, third and fourth stage nymphs fed on 7.99, 8.32, 26.33 number of third instar larvae instar larvae of S. mauritia, respectively. The predator exhibited a type II functional response to S. mauritia larvae with a disc equation of Y'=0.41(5-0.74) x to the increasing density of S. mauritia. This study provides important life history information for using the predator A. spinidens as a possible biological control agent for army worm management in rice.

Journal of Plant Protection Research

“…1A). Each female may lay 2-6 patches containing 7-96 eggs (Rezvani and Shahosseini 1976;Shanker et al 2017) depending on host prey and climate both in the field and laboratory (Rezvani and Shahosseini 1976;Manley 1982;Singh and Singh 1989).…”

“…The period of embryonic growth in A. spinidens has been reported as 7.63 days at 26.6°C (Rajendra and Patel 1971), 6.6 days under field conditions (Singh and Singh 1989), 9 days at 26.6°C (Javadi et al 2005), 6-10 days at 25°C (Shanker et al 2017) and 6.41-6.77 days at four locations of northwestern Himalayan regions (Bhojendra et al 2019). Shintani et al (2010) indicated the temperature of 16.5°C and 102.9 degree-days as the developmental zero and thermal constant of the eggs.…”

“…Moreover, the authors recorded that 4.15 larvae of S. littoralis were required for the reproduction of A. spinidens (Khodaverdi et al 2012). In a similar study, Shanker et al (2017) determined the functional response of A. spinidens to S. mauritia as the type II curvilinear functional re sponse along with the higher number of exposed prey. Such a response demonstrates that the predatory bug kills more individuals at a higher density of prey, with a constant search rate and saturation of predator (Shanker et al 2017).…”

Effect of diverse locations on the biological attributes of predatory bug, Andrallus spinidens (Fabricius) (Hemiptera:Pentatomidae) thriving in North-Western Himalayan region

“…Inside the container of paired adults some strips of blotting paper was provided as substrate for oviposition. After oviposition, egg batches were removed with paper strips and placed in separate plastic containers (20 × 20 × 15cm) to record incubation period and hatching per cent (Shanker et al, 2017;Tiwari et al, 2017). All experiments were performed with three replications for each location.…”

“…To study the variability in predatory efficiency of A. spinidens from different location, each nymphal instar reared on the larvae of Spodoptera litura was investigated. (Uematsu, 2006;Shanker et al, 2017).…”