Imperial College London
Alternate

Professor Denis Wright

Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Life Sciences

Emeritus Professor of Pest Management
 
 
 
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Contact

 

d.wright Website

 
 
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Location

 

Hamilton BuildingSilwood Park

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Midthassel:2015:10.1111/eea.12382,
author = {Midthassel, A and Leather, S and Wright, DJ and Baxter, IH and Farman, DI and Cork, A},
doi = {10.1111/eea.12382},
journal = {Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata},
pages = {97--107},
title = {An astigmatid defence volatile against a phytoseiid mite},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/eea.12382},
volume = {158},
year = {2015}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Numerous semiochemicals have been isolated from several species of astigmatid mites with various identified or unidentified functions. Alarm pheromonal activity is widespread with neryl formate and neral, being the most common compounds eliciting alarm response in conspecifics. The cosmopolitan astigmatid mite Suidasia medanensis (= S. pontifica) Oudemans (Acari: Suidasidae) has been reported to use neral as an alarm pheromone, but neral can also act as an allomone towards predators of oribatid mites. Suidasia medanensis can be utilised as a factitious prey for mass-rearing of the phytoseiid predatory mite Amblyseius (= Typhlodromips) swirskii (Athias-Henriot) (Acari: Phytoseiidae), which is used for biological control of insect and mite pests in protected crops. This study investigated the potential defence properties of the S. medanensis volatiles against A. swirskii, comparing the repellency to pollen-reared (naïve) vs. S. medanensis-reared (experienced) predators using a synthetic blend of the isomers neral and geranial (1:1) as a model compound. In a repellency bioassay, the synthetic blend elicited a significant repellence to A. swirskii with no difference between naïve and experienced predators. During capture success studies, S. medanensis under repeated attack could release sufficient quantities of the defence volatile to deter 1–5 attacks from A. swirskii, whereas hexane-treated S. medanensis artificially depleted of volatiles were significantly more vulnerable to an attack. This is the first report of an astigmatid defence volatile with repellent activity to a phytoseiid mite and the starting point to understanding semiochemical interactions in any current or novel factitious predator-prey mass-rearing system.
AU  - Midthassel,A
AU  - Leather,S
AU  - Wright,DJ
AU  - Baxter,IH
AU  - Farman,DI
AU  - Cork,A
DO  - 10.1111/eea.12382
EP  - 107
PY  - 2015///
SN  - 1570-7458
SP  - 97
TI  - An astigmatid defence volatile against a phytoseiid mite
T2  - Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/eea.12382
VL  - 158
ER  -
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