Suitability of Host Plants and Insect Preys to the Zoophytophagous Tomato Bug Nesidiocoris tenuis (Reuter) (Heteroptera :Miridae)

Abstract

The tomato bug Nesidiocoris tenuis (Reuter) (Miridae, Heteroptera)is one of the mirid bugs that can feed on plants and preys on different insect pests. It’s generally appears with large numbers in greenhouses and open fields of tomato crop in Egypt. It can complete the development of immature stages and survive on solanaceous plants with no choice feed. Tomato plants found to be the suitable host plant with survival rate 42.5%, followed by eggplant and pepper and represented by 21.7 and 10.0 %, respectively. Meanwhile, the duration of the total immature stage found to be the shortest duration when it reared on pepper plants and represented by 7.3 ±0.33days, followed by eggplant and pepper and represented by 8.3±0.3 and 7.7 ±0.3 days, respectively. In addition tomato bug can develop and survive when the immature stage feed on different insects as prey with no choice feed. The survival rate increased by feeding the immature stages insects as prey, the highest survival rate recorded when the tomato bug reared with the tomato borer, Tuta absoluta Meyrick. ranged between 80.8%, meanwhile the lowest survival rate record when reared immature stages on the cotton leafworm Spodoptera littoralis Bosid.,and ranged 63.3%, respectively .On other hand the duration found to be short with 6.33±0.33 days on the cotton whitefly Bemisia tabaci Genn., and T.absoluta followed by the cotton worm and plant hoppers Empoasca spp., and represented by 6.33±0.33 days, respectively. When tomato plants and insects as prey introduced to the immature stages with choice feed, the highest survivals rate were record and ranged 95.8 % on tomato with B. tabaci followed by tomato plants with T.absoluta ,S.littoralis and Empoasca spp.and represented by 92.9 , 90.8 and 89.2 ,respectively.