A note on predatory mites on medicinal plants in South Bengal with results on their predator-prey interaction

Abstract

The present paper reports the occurrence of predatory mites on medicinal plants from coastal region of West Bengal, India on the basis of collection made during 2014-2015. As many as 36 species belonging to 15 genera and 7 families under 3 orders are reported. The species which were found to be most the promising phytoseiid predators seen during the present study were Amblyseius largoensis, Neoseiulus longispinosus, Euseius finlandicus, Euseius alstoniae and Euseius coccineae. All these mostly fed upon various stages of Tetranychid mites in the field. To conserve those promising predators attempts are being made to find out suitable strategy and also doing mass multiplication of Neoseiulus longispinosus, one of the most dominating predators ascertaining their potentiality as bio-control agents. This paper discusses all these aspects in details for utilizing predatory mites in bio-control programme of Tetranychus macfarlanei.