Mass Rearing Of Typhlodromips (Amblyseius) Swirskii(Athias-Henriot) (Acarina: Phytoseiidae)

Currently,Typhlodromips（Amblyseius） swirskii（Athias-Henriot）（Acarina: Phytoseiidae） are known to be used as predators of whiteflies in several agaroecosystems in Europe,especially to be used as a biological control agent against Bemisia tabaci （Gennadius） and Trialeurodes vaporariorum（westwood） in commercial greenhouses. However,research on this predatory mite has been lacking in China,especially on maintenance and mass rearing.Among the different stages of a biological control program, mass rearing of benificials is often a major bottleneck,so we tried to use the stored product mites as factitious hosts,developed one way to maintenance and mass rearing T. swirskii.In this paper,we report on the development time and experimental population life tables of the factitious hosts—Tyrophagus putrescentian（Schrank）;the series functional responses of T.swirskii on the various stages of T.putrescentian;and methods for mass rearing the predatory mite T.swirskii.The major results were as follows:1.Developmental time and life tables of T.putrescentianStuides showed that wheat germ is the most favorite food of T.putrescentian. Development and reproduction of T.putrescentian on diet of wheat germ at 25±2℃, 80±5%RH,non day length indoor,results suggested that the duration of all immature stages were 10.75 days.adult stage were 31.22 days.pre-oviopsition period were 0.53 days.oviopsition period were 21.41 days.after-oviopsition period were 9.58 days.amount of spawned egg per female adult per day were 14.60 granules,ratio of female to male was 1.581:1,the net reproductive rate（R₀） was 227.844,the intrinsic rate of nature increase （r_m） was 0.225,the finite rate of increase（λ） was 1.252,the time for population to double were 3.080 days.mass rearing experiments showed that after 9 weeks development time,the density could increase from started 2 head/g to 3893.6 head/g. 2.The series functional responses of T.swirskii on the various stages of T.putrescentianOn the indoor condition（25±2℃,80±5%RH,non day length）,the series functional responses of T.swirskii on the various stages of T.putrescentian.were studied,and the Holling disc equation was applied.All the functional responses are belong to typeⅡ.The predacious function was influenced by various factors,such as predator density,starvation time,prey type and density.During 0-48h,the consumption increased with the increase of starved time,but after starved 72h,the consumption declined.The predacious rate was negatively correlated to the density of predators,the favorite prey stage of T. putrescentian was egg,followed with larva,nymph,adult,the selection coefficient（Q） were 1.436,1.324,0.908 and 0.128,respectively.3.Methodes for maintenance and mass rearing of T.swirskiiContainer selection studies indicated that beaker was the best container among beaker,conical flask and paper tea caddy,because it was ventilated.Glue barriers were applied along the inner side of the container,and gauze should be used as cover,to make it air permeability and to prevent escapes and contamination.The studies on rearing with three different substances suggested that vermiculite and wheat bran were better than perlite.The nature increase way was suitable for mass production cycle,and feeding way was suitable for maintaining mother cultures as a source of pure inoculum to start a mass production cycle.