Efeito da dieta com diferentes especiés de flores (tagetes erecta, crotalaria juncea e raphanus sativus) sobre o ciclo de vida de telenomus podisi (hymenoptera: scelionidae)

Abstract

Conservative biological control aims to maintain natural enemies in agroecosystems, using different strategies. Among them, the supply of food and shelter are important elements that favor the increase of some species of predators and parasitoids. Telenomus podisi is a species of parasitoid highly efficient in controlling bed bugs of the Pentatomidae family. In this sense, with the purpose of testing whether some floral species can favor their survival in agroecosystems, the biology of the parasitoid was evaluated from the supply of three different floral species. The experiment was carried out in a completely randomized design with 3 treatments and the control containing 15 replications. Newly emerged females were selected and distributed in flat-bottomed glass tubes, containing the control with water and treatments with the floral species Tagetes erecta, Crotalaria juncea, Raphanus sativus, with the entire block provided with unviable eggs of Dichelops melachanthus. The biological parameters evaluated were: longevity of the parental females, fecundity, viability and sex ratio. Longevity, viability and sex ratio were lower in the presence of T. erecta, when compared to the other treatments and control. The number of parasitized eggs was lower both in the presence of T. erecta and R. sativus. No significant differences were recorded for the biological variables tested between the control and treatments in the presence of C. juncea. Among the floral species evaluated, it is possible to affirm that the parasitoid is negatively affected by the presence of marigold and radish. However, future studies to evaluate the parasitism capacity are important to determine whether, throughout the insect's adult life, the presence of food and shelter provided by this species can increase its total capacity to parasitize D. melacanthus eggs.