Amblyseius herbicolus (Chant)

Kreiter, Serge, Douin, Martial & Tixier, Marie Stephane, 2021, New records of phytoseiid mites (Acari: Mesostigmata) from Madeira Island, Acarologia 61 (2), pp. 217-240 : 222-223

Amblyseius herbicolus (Chant)

Typhlodromus (Amblyseius) herbicolus Chant 1959: 84 .

Amblyseius (Amblyseius) herbicolus, Muma 1961: 287 .

Typhlodromus herbicolus, Hirschmann 1962: 23 .

Amblyseius herbicolus, Moraes et al. 1986: 14, 1989a: 79 , 2004b: 27, Chant & McMurtry

2004a: 208, 2007: 78.

Amblyseius impactus Chaudhri 1968: 553 (synonymy according to Daneshvar & Denmark 1982).

Typhlodromus (Amblyseius) amitae Bhattacharyya 1968: 677 (synonymy according to Denmark

& Muma 1989).

Amblyseius deleoni Muma & Denmark 1970: 68 (synonymy according to Daneshvar & Denmark 1982).

Amblyseius giganticus Gupta 1981: 33 (synonymy according to Gupta 1986).

Amblyseius (Amblyseialus) thermophilus Karg 1991: 12 (synonymy according to El­Banhawy

& Knapp 2011).

This species belongs to the largoensis species group as setae J2 and Z1 are present, setae z4

are minute and the ventrianal shield of the female is vase­shaped. It belongs to the largoensis species subgroup as setae Z4 are long, spermatheca has the calyx elongate and the female ventrianal shield is entire ( Chant and McMurtry 2004).

Amblyseius herbicolus is widespread in all tropical and subtropical regions of the world.

It is the second most abundant phytoseiid mites on Coffea arabica L. in Brazil, associated with Brevipalpus phoenicis (Geijskes) , vector of the coffee ring spot virus and it was found to be an efficient predator of that species ( Reis et al. 2007). Amblyseius herbicolus is also found associated with the broad mite, Polyphagotarsonemus latus (Banks) , in crops such as chili pepper ( Capsicum annuum L.) in Brazil and has also be proposed as a good potential for controlling this pest. Rodriguez­Cruz et al. (2013) had studied biological, reproductive and life table parameters of A. herbicolus on three different diets: the broad mite, castor bean pollen

( Ricinus communis L.) and sun hemp pollen ( Crotalaria juncea L.). The predator was able to develop and reproduce on all these three diets. However, its intrinsic rate of natural increase was the highest on broad mites and castor bean pollen. Feeding on alternative food such as pollen can facilitate the predator’s mass rearing and maintains its population on crops when prey is absent or scarce. Many polyphagous generalist phytoseiid mites are important natural enemies because they can feed on plant provided pollen and various prey species, and thus persist in crops even in the absence of target pests ( McMurtry et al. 2013). Hence, populations of these predators can be established in a crop by providing alternative food, thus increasing biological control. Alternative food affects P. latus control on chilli pepper plants by predatory mites ( Duarte et al. 2015). Amblyseius herbicolus had high oviposition and population growth rates when fed with cattail pollen Typha (latifolia L.), chilli pepper pollen and bee­collected pollen, and a low rate on the alternative prey ( Tetranychus urticae Koch ). Supplementing pepper plants with pollen resulted in better control of broad mite populations ( Duarte et al.

2015). Release of A. herbicolus on young plants with weekly addition of honeybee pollen or cattail pollen until plants produce flowers seems a viable strategy to sustain populations of this predator ( Duarte et al. 2015). This is the second report of that species from Madeira Island after the recent record of Ferragut and Baumann (2020).

World distribution: Anjouan Island, Argentina, Australia, Azores, Benin, Brazil, Burundi, Canary Islands, China, Colombia, Grande Comore Island, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, DR Congo, El Salvador, Ghana, Guadeloupe Island, Guatemala, Hawaii, Honduras, India, Iran, Kenya, Les Saintes, Madagascar Island, Malawi, Malaysia, Martinique Island, Mauritius Island, Mohéli Island, New Caledonia Island, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Réunion Island, Rodrigues Island, Rwanda, Senegal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, USA, Venezuela, West Indies.

Specimens examined: 25 specimens (20 ♀♀ and 5 imm.) collected during this study. Funchal, Botanical garden (350 m aasl, 32°39 ′ 46 ″ N, 16°53 ′ 38 ″ W), 1 ♀ on Montanoa bipinnatifida (Kunth) Koch (Asteraceae) , 14/V/2019 ; Monte, Botanical garden of Monte Palace (943 m aasl, 32°40 ′ 27 ″ N, 16°54 ′ 10 ″ W), 1 imm. on Fuchsia boliviana Carrière (Onagraceae) and 1 ♀ on Plectranthus ciliatus Meyer (Lamiaceae) , 16/V/2019 ; Ribeira Brava, Dazkarizeh Guesthouse (475 m aasl, 32°40 ′ 5 ″ N, 17°2 ′ 55 ″ W), 1 ♀ on Gossypium hirsutum

L. ( Malvaceae ), 20/V/2019 ; Same location, 3 ♀♀ and 1 imm. on Persea indica Sprengel (Lauraceae) , 23/V/2019 ; Portela (670 m aasl, 32°44 ′ 50 ″ N, 16°49 ′ 33 ″ W), 2 ♀♀ and 1 imm. on Ocotea foetens (Aiton) Baillon (Lauraceae) , 3 ♀♀ on Laurus azorica (Seubert) Franco (Lauraceae) , 5 ♀♀ on Nephrolepsis exaltata (L.) Shott ( Dryopteridaceae ) and 4 ♀♀ and 2 imm. Erica scoparia L. ( Ericaceae ), 23/V/2019.

Remarks: morphological and morphometric characters and all measurements fit well with those provided in Kreiter and Abo­Shnaf (2020a, b) and Kreiter et al. (2021a, b) for specimens of the Indian Ocean. Amblyseius herbicolus was previously recorded in many countries of the world and especially in French West Indies ( Moraes et al. 2000, Kreiter et al. 2006). It is also reported recently from Vietnam ( Kreiter et al. 2020c), Rodrigues and Mauritius Islands (Kreiter and Abo­Shnaf 2020a, b) but only from females, like in Ferragut and Baumann (2020) and this study.

We agree with the opinion of Ferragut and Baumann (2020), as the report of A. largoensis by Carmona (1973) could represent a misidentification. The same conclusion was drawn by Döker et al. (2020) for specimens of both species in Turkey. However, Carmona’s specimens were not available for examination by the former authors. Just like the former authors, we found that A. herbicolus was one of the most abundant phytoseiid species (35.3% of all the phytoseiids collected for them and 21% for us) and frequent (19% of samples for them and 31% for us) in material collected in the Madeira archipelago. Moreover, many confusions were made in the literature between A. largoensis and A. herbicolus , these two species being separate by only three characters: the shape of the calyx of spermatheca ( McMurtry and Moraes 1984 ; Döker et al. 2020), the size of atrium compared to the base of calyx and the number of teeth on the movable digit ( Döker et al. 2020).