Experimental and Applied Acarology (2016) 69, 263-276

Cleide Rosa Dias, Ana Maria Guimarães Bernardo, Jussara Mencalha, Caelum Woods Carvalho Freitas, Renato Almeida Sarmento, Angelo Pallini and Arne Janssen (2016)
Antipredator behaviours of a spider mite in response to cues of dangerous and harmless predators
Experimental and Applied Acarology 69 (3), 263-276
Abstract: Prey are known to invest in costly antipredator behaviour when perceiving cues of dangerous, but not of relatively harmless predators. Whereas most studies investigate one type of antipredator behaviour, we studied several types (changes in oviposition, in escape and avoidance behaviour) in the spider miteTetranychus evansi inresponse to cues from two predatory mites. The predator Phytoseiulus longipes isconsidered a dangerous predator for T. evansi, whereas Phytoseiulus macropilis hasa low predation rate on this prey, thus is a much less dangerous predator. Spider mite females oviposited less on leaf disc halves with predator cues than on clean disc halves, independent of the predator species. On entire leaf discs, they laid fewer eggs in the presence of cues of the dangerous predator than on clean discs, but not in the presence of cues of the harmless predator. Furthermore, the spider mites escaped more often from discs with cues of the dangerous predator than from discs without predator cues, but they did not escape more from discs with cues of the harmless predator. The spider mites did not avoid plants with conspecifics and predators. We conclude that the spider mites displayed several different antipredator responses to the same predator species, and that some of these antipredator responses were stronger with cues of dangerous predators than with cues of harmless predators.
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Database assignments for author(s): Arne Janssen, Renato Almeida Sarmento

Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
biocontrol - natural enemies
Research topic(s) for beneficials or antagonists:
resistance/tolerance/defence of host

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Pest and/or beneficial records:

Beneficial	Pest/Disease/Weed	Crop/Product	Country	Quarant.
	Tetranychus evansi	Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum)	Brazil (south)
Phytoseiulus macropilis (predator)	Tetranychus evansi		Brazil (south)
Phytoseiulus longipes (predator)	Tetranychus evansi