Effects of Bemisia tabaci and Macrolophus pygmaeus on morpho-physiological traits of plants
Whiteflies (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) are critical pests attacking many cultivated plants in almost all areas of the world. Among them, Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) is a global pest that causes significant losses to a wide variety of crops by affecting plants development. To control B. tabaci infestations, the release of natural enemies has become increasingly important as an ecologically safe and effective biological control method and, among predators used, the mirid bug Macrolophus pygmaeus (Rambur) plays a primary role. Anyway, due to its zoophytophagous habits, a wrong application rate of this predator can also make this beneficial a threat to the plants; and this is why a better understanding is needed of the role that M. pygmaeus plays on crops, evaluated in a holistic way. To this aim, and in order to deepen knowledge on the impact that whiteflies alone or combined with M. pygmaeus may have on vegetable solanaceous crops (with special emphasis to tomato and eggplant), the main morphological (total height, dry weights, leaf area) and physiological (photosynthetic performance, indirect chlorophyll content) parameters of the plants were analysed in different conditions (healthy plants, or infested by the pest, or with pest and predator together). At the experimental conditions and the insect densities adopted, results show a variable susceptibility by different plant species to B. tabaci and a significant reduction induced by M. pygmaeus in negative effects caused by the pest on morpho-physiological traits of the plants.
Descrizione dettagliata
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Informazioni sul contributo
- Posizione
- Europe
- Italy
- Autori del contributo
- Giuseppe Eros Massimino Cocuzza
- Alessia Farina
- Pompeo Suma
- Carmelo Rapisarda
- Scopo
- Experimentation
- Evaluation
- Monitoring
- Decision-making support
- Tipo di file
- Document
- Dimensione del file
- 626 kB
- Pubblicato su
- 12-06-2023
- Lingua d'origine
- English
- Sito web ufficiale del progetto
- VIRTIGATION
- Licenza
- CC BY
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