Seasonal, spatial and diel partitioning of Acyrthosiphon pisum (Hemiptera: Aphididae) predators and predation in alfalfa fields

A review of the sentinel prey method as a way of quantifying invertebrate predation under field conditions

“…The most common prey used were Lepidoptera (n = 43, 18 species), Coleoptera (n = 17, 10 species), Hemiptera (n = 15, 6 species), and Diptera (n = 5, 4 species). Eggs were the most frequently used life stage (n = 52), followed by larvae (n = 14), pupae or nymphs (n = 11); only 3 studies (Brown & Mathews, 2008;Winqvist et al, 2011;Ximenez-Embun et al, 2014) used adults. Sentinels were mostly immobilised (n = 10) or naturally immobile (n = 62), but not always (n = 8), with 6 experiments (Mathews et al, 2004;Wiebe & Obrycki, 2004;Chen & Ruberson, 2008;Hong et al, 2011;Mathews et al, 2011;Lee & Edwards, 2012) using mobile and immobile prey simultaneously.…”

Temporal variability of aphid biological control in contrasting landscape contexts

“…This group has been extensively studied in European agrosystems and its distribution has been evidenced to be strongly influenced by the landscape structure (Aviron et al, 2005;Jonason et al, 2013;Östman et al, 2001). In Chile, the knowledge on carabid beetles is scarce (but see Grez et al, 2004;Carrillo et al, 2007), and despite that they are present in Chilean agricultural systems it seems that they have a limited role as biological control agents of aphids (Carrillo et al, 2007;Ximenez-Embun et al, 2014).…”

Historical, landscape and resource influences on the coccinellid community in Missouri

“…obs.). This is consistent with previous studies, which found that coccinellids forage more frequently and consistently in the morning (Mack & Smilowitz, 1979;Iperti, 1999;Ximenez-Embun et al, 2014). Using these data, I then examined how species identity, aphid abundance, and the presence of exotic species affected the number of native beetles found foraging in a prey patch with block as a random factor (PROC ANOVA; SAS v 9.3).…”