Insect Predators and Parasites

Insect Predators and Parasites and Other Biological Controls... 

These companies offer microbial disease products, pheromone traps, and insect predators and parasites. Insectaries specialize in rearing pest predators and parasites. Some rear several species at their facilities, while others raise only one or two and buy the other... 

Biopesticides include microbial living systems primarily based on bacteria, fungi and viruses. They may also include macro-organisms such as entomopathogenic nematodes, insect predators, and parasites. Biological pesticides may also include plant-derived metabolites as well as insect pheromones and most interestingly... 

Hagstrum, D.W. and Stanley, J.M. 1979. Release-recapture estimates of the population density of Ephestia cautella (Walker) in a commercial peanut warehouse. J. Stored Prod. Res. 15, 117-122. Hagstrum, D.W., Stanley, J.M., and Turner, K.W. 1977. Flight activity of Ephestia cautella as influenced by the intensity of ultraviolet or green radiation. J. Ga. Entomol. Soc. 12, 231-236. Haines, C.O. 1984. Biological methods for integrated control of insects and miles in tropical stored products. III. The use of predators and parasites. Prop. Stored Prod. Inf. 48, 17-25. 

Some gardeners purchase and release various beneficial insects into their garden to control harmful insects. A variety of companies sell beneficial insects. Extension factsheet SP290-Z, Commercial Sources for Predators and Parasites, lists several such companies. 

Devise a strategy to avoid or delay the onset of insect resistance using chemicals (both insect toxic and behaviour modifying), predators and parasites and transgenic crops ... 

Tissue deposits are less available to bark beetle predators and parasites searching the bark surface for their host. Therefore, they offer more specificity toward the target insect. Further, tissue deposits may be easier to reproduce consistently. Unless we acquire better understanding of the factors that control crystallization, we will find it difficult to control the character of surface deposits obtained from solution. On the other hand, the character of wettable powder deposits seems to be more easily controlled (particle size, density). 

Biological control of insects includes predators and parasites pathogens sterile males pheromones juvenile hormones. 

Predators and Parasites—Organisms known to attack insert (and insect-like) pests in their native environment can be imported or reared in labomto-ries and released in infested areas. This is done only after the parasites or predators are determined to be harmless to man, animals, plants, and other beneficial organisms. For example, several kinds of parasites and predators of the alfalfa weevil have been imported from Europe and Asia and released in the infested areas in this country. Several species have become established and are helping to reduce pest numbers. However, they do not always prevent serious outbreaks and the resultant damage. 

Carnivores Most of us are familiar with carnivorous insects such as mosquitoes, deer flies, and biting midges. These pests land on mammals or birds, suck blood for a short period of time, and then fly away. Others that feed on blood, such as lice and fleas, live on the skin of animals, hidden in their fur. Gardeners should also get to know the large group of carnivorous insects that feed on insects or other arthropods. These are divided into two main groups—predators and parasites. 

As broad-spectrum insecticides, the synthetic pyrethroids are necessarily toxic to a wide range of arthropods. Most insect orders are extremely susceptible, including many types of beneficial predator and parasite species. Synthetic pyrethroids are also toxic to fish and nontarget aquatic insects and cmstaceans. Fenvalerate, for example, enters freshwater aquatic environments in runoff from food crop use, in drift from forest-spray... 

The widespread use of economic poisons has a definite impact on the animal complex on the face of the earth which provides our sustenance. Already we have seen the use of DDT for codling moth control on apples result in a relatively minor pest becoming a serious threat. The same material used as a wonder spray for fly control now fails, after a couple years of common usage, with the appearance of new, resistant strains of flies. Bees and other pollinating insects as well as helpful predators or parasites may be decimated and their important aid be lost by untimely or improper use of most of the newer insecticides. 

Second, the increased movement necessary for locating widely dispersed feeding sites should increase contact rates with enemies. Movement makes insects more conspicuous to parasitoids or predators sensitive to it (50,51). Random encounters with arthropod predators or parasites should increase with searching activity, as would risk of dislodgement and fallout. 

The nutritional requirements of insect species exhibiting different feeding habits like scavengers, parasites, predators and phytophagous insects, are similar in a qualitative sense (O. Each insect species needs, however, a particular quantitative composition of nutrients in its diet to complete development ( ). The presence of toxic substances in plants, secondary plant substances as they were formerly called by phytochemists, forms a barrier which phytophagous insects have overcome by specialization. Thus, an insect can tolerate or detoxify the secondary plant substances present in its host plants, while the majority of these substances being present in other plants still acts as toxins (J ). In this way phytophagous insects are adapted to the metabolic qualities of their host plants, i.e. a particular chemical composition of nutrients and secondary plant substances. 

---