Konstantinos Samaras

Democritus University of Thrace | DUTH · Department of Agricultural Development

BACKGROUND Biological control with predatory mites is applied against pests in greenhouse crops. Chemical control with the use of selective, reduced‐risk pesticides, is an important component of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programs, that often needs to be combined with biological control. Here, we evaluated the effect of plant pollen when used...

The two-spotted spider mite Tetranychus urticae is a polyphagous herbivore with a worldwide distribution, and is a serious pest in tomato and other crops. As an alternative to chemical pesticides, biological control with the release of natural enemies such as predatory mites represent an efficient method to control T. urticae in many crops, but not...

Beneficial soil microbes have long been recognized for their ability to improve plant growth, to antagonize pathogens and to prime plants against biotic stressors. Nevertheless, their ability to enhance plant resistance against arthropod pests remains largely unexplored, especially in crop plants such as pepper. Herein, we assessed the effects of s...

Plant pollen is an important alternative food for generalist phytoseiid mites ensuring survival and supporting population build-up during periods of prey scarcity. However, in the short term predator efficacy can be negatively affected by pollen provisioning as a consequence of predator satiation or when pollen is preferred over prey. This is count...

Functional response models describe the relationship between prey density and per capita prey consumption rate by a predator. Type II functional responses, in which density‐dependent predation occurs via a decelerating feeding rate, seem to prevail in nature and are commonly described by Holling’s disk equation. In the derivation of the disk equati...

Amblydromalus limonicus is a polyphagous phytoseiid predator used for the biological control of thrips and whiteflies in greenhouse crops. Besides various prey species, A. limonicus can also feed on pollen of different plants. Cattail pollen has been previously shown to be suitable for the development and reproduction of A. limonicus. Hence, it cou...

Plant pollen is considered a food of high nutritional quality for several natural enemies, such as predatory insects and mites. In periods of prey absence or scarcity, omnivorous predators often exploit plant pollen as an alternative food. In the case of predators feeding on mixed diets, pollen may be consumed supplementary to the main prey. Howeve...

Direct effects of released natural enemies on non-target organisms comprise an important element of an environmental risk assessment scheme (van Lenteren et al., 2003). Native and exotic predators used in augmentative and inoculative biological control may negatively affect the abundance of non-target herbivores and intraguild predators, provided t...

Background Iphiseius degenerans (Berlese) (Acari: Phytoseiidae) is a common predatory mite in citrus orchards in some areas of the Mediterranean basin and an important biological control agent of the thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande) in Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programs in greenhouse crops. In this study, we evaluated the effect...

Phytoseiid mites of the genus Phytoseius are natural enemies of tetranychid and eriophyid herbivorous mites mostly found on hairy plants where they feed on prey, as well as on pollen. Nevertheless, the nutritional ecology and the role of these predators in biological pest control are only rarely addressed. In the present study, we evaluated the pot...