Objective
The use of chemicals to control insect pests generates many drawbacks concerning agriculture, environment and human health. These drawbacks could be greatly reduced by using natural enemies to control pest insects. Biological control using insect predators (e.g. Coccinellids, heteropterans) and parasitoids (e.g. Trichogramma,...) Is already used in practice and has proved to be efficient in many situations. The extension of biological control is strongly limited by the necessity to produce large numbers of entomophagous insects at competitive cost. Efforts to shorten the production line have been performed by using alternative hosts/prey or artificial diets, but in many cases empirically established artificial diets, if any, are not suited for good quality production of entomophagous insects.
In recent years, an increasing interest was observed worldwide for artificial rearing of parasitoids and predators of agricultural pest insects, and more and more research teams, especially in the USA, have developed programmes on such subjects, with encouraging results. To preserve the scientific and economic independence of the European Union, it is necessary to develop European research strategies in this field. A solid background exists in Europe on the artificial rearing of parasitoids and predators and different teams have been implicated in this research for years.
The objective of this project is to define artificial diets for the in vitro production of some important predators and parasitoids based on an analytical and rational approach. Artificial diets for different predators (1 coccinellid and 3 heteropterans) and one aphid parasitoid will be based on biochemical analyses of their natural or substitution food. Reliable quality control parameters of the entomophages produced will be used in order to adjust dietary composition and formulation.
The work will focus on the development and optimisation of artificial diets for coccinellid (Harmonia), heteropteran (Orius, Podisus, Dicyphus) predators, and a braconid parasitoid of aphids (Aphidius). Three of the predato species (Harmonia, Orius, Dicyphus) feed on aphids as natural food and can be produced on Ephestia kuehniella eggs as substitution food. Although Podisus also feeds on aphids, it usually preys upon caterpillars and can be reared on several factitious hosts. All of the selected insects are important biocontrol agents which are already used in various greenhouse crops in Europe against aphids, aleyrodids, thrips and lepidopterans. Analyses of the food (biochemical analyses of main nutrients, determination of other components such as feeding stimulants, consistency agent preservative agents ...) Will allow to determine nutritional and other physiological needs. According to available substrates, different diets suited to each species will be formulated partly by computation. Quality of entomophages obtained on newly developed diets or on adjustments of available diets will be compared with that of control entomophages reared on natural food by using different quality parameters, including biochemical, physiological, and behavioural traits. The differences between insects obtained on natural and artificial foods, will allow to further modify and improve the artificial diets.
For the predatory coccinellid Harmonia axyridis, an industrial partner will validate the results from the research in order to optimize the rearing procedures for the industrial production and distribution of this promising natural enemy.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencesnutrition
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagriculture
- natural sciencesbiological scienceszoologyentomology
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Topic(s)
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
69621 VILLEURBANNE
France