Abstract
SummarySurveys were made of fields of strawberries of various cultivars and flowering/fruiting seasons in south-east England to determine the composition and relative abundance of the beneficial arthropod fauna. Most fields had a minimal spray programme, with nil or one insecticide treatment per season. Spiders were consistently the most abundant group of polyphagous predators in suction or tap samples. Anthocorids, mainly Orius spp., sometimes became numerous, particularly on everbearer cultivars. Numbers of coccinellids, chrysopids and predatory mirids were usually very small. Hymenopteran parasitoids were often numerous in fields with large aphid populations. Two species of phytoseiid mites and the larvae of a cecidomyiid midge were found in leaf samples, in association with colonies of two-spotted spider mite. Aphid numbers reached damaging levels in some fields, despite the presence of large numbers of predators. Spider mites also reached high numbers in some fields, but populations declined where predatory phytoseiids colonized the plants. Large variability in numbers of beneficial arthropods occurred between fields over short distances.
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