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Natural enemies associated with Tuta absoluta and functional biodiversity in vegetable crops

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Abstract

Tuta absoluta Meyrick (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) is considered one of the main pests threatening tomato production worldwide. In the Mediterranean, the use of predatory mirids is widespread, and although several larval parasitoid species have been recorded in the area, their contribution to the biological control of the pest is often neglected. With the general objective of improving the biological control of T. absoluta, our field study aimed to determine the relative abundance of natural enemies associated with T. absoluta in tomato fields and to assess whether insectary plants placed in the vicinity of vegetable crops would help to improve functional biodiversity in the farms. The study was conducted during two years in six commercial tomato fields in Northeast Spain that were managed using an integrated pest management program based on predatory mirid conservation. Our results indicated that Necremnus tutae Ribes & Bernardo (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) was by far the main natural enemy responsible for larval parasitism of T. absoluta. The flowering plants used in the present study were attractive to several natural enemies that are of interest not only for tomato but also for other vegetable crops coexisting at the farm level, including parasitoid wasps, hoverflies, and other important beneficials, such as Orius spp., ladybeetles and predatory thrips.

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The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the technical staff of the Sustainable Plant Protection Programme (IRTA) for their help with the experiments, and Anabel Blasco-Moreno from the Servei d’Estadística Aplicada (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) for her support in the statistical analysis. The present research was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Projects AGL2013-49164-C2-2-R and AGL2016-77373-C2-1-R) and the CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya. Yahana Aparicio was supported by a grant provided by CONACyT (Mexico) and Carmen Denis by a PhD grant of BECAL-PY. We are in debt to the farmers that kindly allowed us to conduct the experiments in their fields and the pest advisors of ADV Baix Maresme and Selmar, who provided us with technical support. We also appreciated the insightful comments of anonymous reviewers and the editor that clearly improved the quality of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IRTA, Sustainable Plant Protection Program, Ctra. de Cabrils Km 2, 08348 Cabrils, 083240, Barcelona, Spain

    Judit Arnó, Paula Molina, Yahana Aparicio, Carmen Denis, Rosa Gabarra & Jordi Riudavets

  2. Lausanne, Switzerland

    Yahana Aparicio

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  1. Judit Arnó
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  2. Paula Molina
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  3. Yahana Aparicio
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  4. Carmen Denis
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JA, RG, and JR conceived and designed the research. All authors conducted experiments and analyzed data. JA and JR wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

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Arnó, J., Molina, P., Aparicio, Y. et al. Natural enemies associated with Tuta absoluta and functional biodiversity in vegetable crops. BioControl 66, 613–623 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10526-021-10097-4

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