Orius laevigatus Induces Plant Defenses in Sweet Pepper

Abstract

Pest management in protected sweet pepper crops primarily relies on biological control strategies. The release of the phytoseiid Amblyseius swirskii Athias-Henriot (Acari: Phytoseiidae) and the anthocorid Orius laevigatus Fieber (Hemiptera: Anthocoridae) provides effective control of the two key pests of this crop, the thrips Frankliniella occidentalis Pergande (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) and the whitefly Bemisia tabaci Gennadius (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) (Sanchez et al., 2000; Calvo et al., 2009; van der Blom et al., 2009). A part of their direct effect on pest predation, zoophytophagous predators may induce defensive plant responses due to their plant feeding behaviour which involves the release of diverse volatiles through different pathways that are triggered by phytohormones (De Puysseleyr et al., 2011; Naselli et al., 2016; Pappas et al., 2015, 2016; Pérez-Hedo et al., 2015a,b). These responses may result in the repellence or attraction of pests and natural enemies. It is hence hypothesized that O. laevigatus would be able to induce plant responses in sweet pepper as has been demonstrated in other plantzoophytophage systems. As a first step to better understand the interaction between O. laevigatus and sweet pepper, the behavior of O. laevigatus on the plants was studied and plant feeding behaviour quantified to compare general behaviors. Orius laevigatus spends the majority of its time (38%) feeding on apical meristems and apical fresh leaves, which were also preferred residence locations (Bouagga et al., 2017).