Thrips is one of the most harmful insect groups attacking many field and vegetable crops. Predatory mites, especially those in family Phytoseiidae, are considered as good bioagents to control thrips where application of chemical pesticides can be decreased. This work was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of the two phytoseiid mites, Amblyseius swirskii (Athias-Henriot) and Neoseiulus cucumeris...

Experiments were carried out on the toxicity of selected insecticides and fungicides to the predatory mites species: Amblyseius swirskii, A. andersoni, and Phytoseiulus persimilis. Among the tested active substances: abamectin, hexytiazox, and spinosad were safe to the predators. The mortality level of the tested predator was comparable to the control treatment, seven days after application. Th...

Learning is widely documented across animal taxa but studies stringently scrutinizing the causes of constitutive or operational variation of learning among populations and individuals are scarce. The ability to learn is genetically determined and subject to constitutive variation while the performance in learning depends on the immediate circumstances and is subject to operational variation. We...

Plant defense traits such as trichomes along with biocontrol agents may provide alternatives to insecticide use in tomatoes, Solanum lycopersicum L. (Solanaceae). However, plant-herbivore-natural enemy interactions are not always complementary. In a series of greenhouse and field experiments, we explored whether augmented (i.e., production acylsugars) tomato plants could reduce sweet potato whi...

Several phytoseiid species are excellent biological control agents for suppressing mite pest populations in many crops and preventing yield losses. This paper aims to improve the knowledge of Phytoseiidae diversity citrus orchards argan forest central western Morocco. The surveys were conducted between April October during three successive years (2017–2019), nine conventional covering an area m...