Hopp til hovedinnholdet

Publications

NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.

2009

Sammendrag

Neozygites floridana is a fungus in the order Entomophthorales that is a natural enemy of several spider mite species including the two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae. When conditions are right, this fungus may cause epizootics in spider mite populations and kill high numbers of mites. The fungus is therefore promising for biological control of T. urticae in strawberry and can be used in combination with other pest management strategies. Our previous studies have shown that N. floridana is compatible with other biocontrol methods such as predatory mites. Phytoseiulus longipes fed on fungus-infected T. urticae laid equal number of eggs to those fed on healthy prey. This indicates that the fungus does not affect this predatory mite negatively. In a choice experiment (hosts with and without N. floridana), P. longipes fed indiscriminately irrespective of the presence of the fungus. The compatibility of biological control methods with pesticides is of great importance for an integrated pest management system to work well. Some acaricides and fungicides have the potential to affect both beneficial fungi and predatory mites and careful selection of pesticides that are not harmful to these beneficial organisms can promote their biocontrol potential. Our studies have shown that the fungicides captan, mancozeb, tolylfluanid, fenhexamid, cyprodinil + fludioxonil affect N. floridana in a way that may be detrimental to the biocontrol potential of this beneficial fungus in the field. Use of resistant varieties is also important in integrated pest management because pests are known to be more vulnerable to pathogens if they feed on poor or resistant plants and our studies on effects of host plants of spider mites confirms this.