Plants for Fitness Enhancement of a Coffee Leaf Miner Parasitoid

Carolina Calderón-Arroyo, Pedro H. B. Togni, Gabriel M. Pantoja, Angela S. Saenz and Madelaine Venzon ()
Additional contact information
Carolina Calderón-Arroyo: Departamento de Entomologia, Universidade Federal de Viçosa—UFV, Viçosa 36570-000, MG, Brazil
Pedro H. B. Togni: Departamento de Ecologia, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade de Brasília—UnB, Brasília 70910-900, DF, Brazil
Gabriel M. Pantoja: Departamento de Entomologia, Universidade Federal de Viçosa—UFV, Viçosa 36570-000, MG, Brazil
Angela S. Saenz: Entomology Department, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
Madelaine Venzon: Empresa de Pesquisa Agropecuária de Minas Gerais—EPAMIG Sudeste, Villa Gianetti 46, Viçosa 36570-000, MG, Brazil

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 2, 1-10

Abstract: The enhancement of pest control through the conservation of natural enemies in agricultural fields is called conservation biological control. One of the strategies used on this system is to introduce or manage plants that can provide food for natural enemies. We assessed the effect of feeding resources on the fitness of a coffee leaf miner parasitoid, Proacrias coffeae Ihering (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae), by evaluating the effect of different nectar resources on the survival of P. coffeae . To do so we used three flowering plants: Bidens pilosa , Galinsoga parviflora, and Varronia curassavica , and the leguminous shrub, Senna cernua Balb. H.S. Irwin & Barneby which produces extrafloral nectar. When feeding on the floral nectar of V. curassavica and on the extrafloral nectar of S. cernua the parasitoids increased their survival, however, no significant differences were found when feeding on B. pilosa and G. parviflora . We evaluated the effect of extrafloral nectar of S. cernua on the egg load of P. coffeae and found an increase in their egg load when exposed to the extrafloral nectar and with increasing age. Our results show the potential of V. curassavica and S. cernua as nutritional resources to enhance the fitness of the parasitoid P. coffeae, by increasing their survival. Based on the research study, it is evident that the introduction of feeding resources for P. coffeae in the coffee agroecosystem will increase their fitness as a potential biocontrol agent by enhancing their survival and reproductive potential.

Keywords: plant provided food; nectar; Proacrias coffeae; conservation biological control (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/2/244/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/2/244/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:13:y:2023:i:2:p:244-:d:1041721

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().