Indirect effect of spiders on herbivory of insects: A review

Abstract

Herbivory can be very overpricing as it causes great losses in agricultural industry. Entomologists are concerning for replacement of synthetic chemicals with natural methods of controlling pests to avoid environmental hazards. Spiders are considered as a natural enemy of a wide range of insect pests. The chemical cues as pheromones and spider’s silk on plants may also cause a fear among herbivorous insects; hence they avoid the plants that bear spiders or their cues. Which cause prolonged starvation in herbivorous and ultimately leads to death. In this way, presence of spiders alters the foraging behavior of insect pests. This predatory phenomenon is the combination of induced migration and consumption. The objective of current review is to explore factors, mechanisms and responses of spider toward herbivory of insects. So that introduction, augmentation or conservation of spiders in agro-ecosystem can be adopted to keep natural check on herbivory of economically important insect pests.