Life history of predatory mites Typhlodromus athiasae and Amblyseius cabonus (Acari: Phytoseiidae) on two pest mites as prey, with special reference to Eriophyes dioscoridis (Acari: Eriophyidae).

Studies on the reproduction, longevity and life table parameters of Typhlodromus athiasae Porath and Swirski and Amblyseius cabonus Schicha and El Shafie were carried out under laboratory conditions of 25 ± 1°C and 75 ± 5% RH. As food sources for both phytoseiid mites, nymphs of the spider mite Tetranychus urticae Koch (Acari: Tetranychidae) and the motile stages of the eriophyid mite Eriophes dioscoridis Soliman and Abou Awad (Acari: Eriophyidae) were selected. Both diets were accepted as food by females of T. athiasae, while no development beyond the protonymphal stage occurred in the case of A. cabonus. For T. athiasae, the developmental periods was similar on both diets, while the adult longevity was shorter (28.7 days compared to 36.3 days) and reproduction was higher (61.5 eggs/female compared to 49.6 eggs/female), when fed on E. dioscoridis compared with T. urticae as food. A higher value of net reproduction rate (Ro = 45.51), intrinsic rate of increase (rm = 0.2884), finite rate of increase (λ = 1.33) and shorter mean generation time (T = 13.23 days) were recorded when T. athiasae was offered E. dioscoridis as food. The number of eggs deposited per day by T. athiasae was higher (2.8 eggs/female/day) on E. dioscoridis than on T. urticae (2.0 eggs/female/day). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]