Abstract
AbstractIn two-choice laboratory feeding trials in Petri dishes, adult carabid beetles, Pterostichus corvus (Leconte) and Pterostichus femoralis (Kirby), ate a higher percentage of grasshopper eggs, Melanoplus bivittatus (Say), than of cat food. Pterostichus corvus ate more eggs than did P. femoralis. Grasshopper eggs buried in soil in terraria were eaten by P. corvus adults at more than twice the rate of eggs exposed on the soil surface; predation rates at depths of 2.5 and 5 cm were the same. In plant-propagation trays, predation by P. corvus of buried grasshopper eggs was studied under three types of ground cover: Nicotiana seedlings, with rosette-form growth habit; barley seedlings, which exhibited upright growth; and bare ground. A significantly higher percentage of eggs was eaten under the Nicotiana than beneath the other types of ground cover, and predation rates did not differ between the barley and bare-ground treatments. Pterostichus corvus appears to be a suitable candidate for enhancement of natural biological control of grasshopper eggs, and manipulation of vegetation cover in grasshopper egg beds may be an effective technique for enhancing predation rates.
Published Version
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