Cold Storage Effects on Fitness of the Whitefly Parasitoids <i>Encarsia sophia</i> and <i>Eretmocerus hayati</i>

oleh: Dawit Kidane, Marco Ferrante, Xiao-Ming Man, Wan-Xue Liu, Fang-Hao Wan, Nian-Wan Yang

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2020-07-01

Deskripsi

Successful biological control of the whitefly <i>Bemisia tabaci</i> involves the mass rearing of biocontrol agents in large numbers for field release. Cold storage of the biocontrol agents is often necessary to provide a sufficient number of biocontrol agents during an eventual pest outbreak. In this study, the fitness of two whitefly parasitoids <i>Encarsia sophia</i> Girault and Dodd (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae) and <i>Eretmocerus hayati</i> Zolnerowich and Rose (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae) was evaluated under fluctuating cold storage temperatures. The emergence rate of old pupae of either species was not affected when stored at 12, 10, 8 and 6 °C for 1 week. Cold storage had no effect on the longevity of the emerging adult <i>En. sophia</i> except young pupae stored at 4 °C, while <i>Er. hayati</i> was negatively affected after 2 weeks of storage time at all temperatures. Parasitism by adults emerging from older pupae stored at 12 °C for 1 week was equivalent to the control. Combined with the results for the emergence time, we suggest that the old pupal stage of <i>En. sophia</i> and <i>Er. hayati</i> could be stored at 12 and 10 °C, respectively (transferred every 22 h to 26 ± 1 °C for 2 h), for 1 week, with no or little adverse effect.