Mesostigmata as Biological Control Agents, with Emphasis on Rhodacaroidea and Parasitoidea

Biology and predation capacity of Parasitus bituberosus (Acari: Mesostigmata: Parasitidae) on Frankliniella occidentalis (Thysanoptera: Thripidae), and free‐living nematodes as its complementary prey

“…gregarius preferred nematodes ( Rhabditis elongata Scheneider) over housefly eggs and larvae. Nematode feeding has also been reported for immatures of several other groups of predatory mites, and it has been well documented in mites of the family Macrochelidae …”

“…Parasitidae are free‐living mites of broad distribution, found mostly in the soils with high content of organic matter . Numerous studies have been published on their taxonomy and biology …”

“…In preliminary laboratory observations, we noticed that specimens of P. bituberosus were commonly found in aggregations, feeding voraciously on F. occidentalis , and that when kept in isolation, immatures of the mite could not reach adulthood. Parasitid mites have been reported to prey on beetle larvae, fly larvae, Collembola, Symphyla, astigmatid mites and nematodes . However, no study has evaluated these mites as thrips predators.…”

Soil mesostigmatid mites (Acari: Mesostigmata) inhabiting rose fields and neighboring vegetation in the Bogota plateau and their potential role as biological control agents of <i>Frankliniella occidentalis</i> (Insecta: Thysanoptera)

“…Species of the first subfamily predominate in transient habitats (e.g. dung, compost), while species of the last subfamily are considered to be favored by stable habitats (Juvara-Bals 1972;Hyatt 1980;Castilho et al 2015), which seems compatible with the results of the present study when comparing the secondary vegetation with rose fields. One of the species found in both ecosystems, P. bituberosus, was evaluated as a predator of different prey, including sciarid fly larvae and nematodes, in the study conducted by Szafranek et al (2013), it was concluded that P. bituberosus is promising as biological control agent of sciarid fly larvae in mushroom culture.…”

“…In relation to mite age structure in rose field, the dominance of deutonymphs (by themselves or together with adults) when the dominant family was Parasitidae might be related to the fact that these mites migrate as deutonymphs (Castilho et al 2015), these perhaps being thus more resistant to environmental stresses. However, several other factors could account for the higher proportions of deutonymphs and adults in relation to other stages determined in this study, as for example their higher extraction efficiency with Berlese funnel, employed in this study for mite extraction (Barberena-Arias et al 2012).…”