Biology and life table parameters of Typhlodromus recki (Acari: Phytoseiidae)fed on Tetranychus urticae (Acari: Tetranychidae)

Abstract: Herbivorous mites are important pests that attack many plants in agriculturalproduction systems. Especially, two-spotted spider mite (TSSM), Tetranychus urticae Koch(Acari: Tetranychidae), is a pest of many economical important plant species in the world.Because of the disadvantage of the chemical methods producers move towards to biologicalcontrol against TSSM. The predatory mites (Phytoseiidae) are most commonly used insuppression of TSSM populations and many predatory mite species are produced and sold bydifferent companies in the world. There are also natural populations in different regions of manypredatory mites that are commercially available for sale. Typhlodromus recki Wainstein (Acari:Phytoseiidae) was detected in survey studies in Turkey and in other parts of the world and itwas emphasized that it could be a potential predator. We collected T. recki from aubergines,pepper, black nightshade and jimsonweed, where associated with T. urticae in a pesticide-freevegetable garden of a small producer in Denizli, Turkey. The biology and life table parametersof T. recki at different temperatures (20, 25, 30 and 35 °C) were determined in this study. Theresults showed that total developmental periods of T. recki females at 20, 25, 30 and 35 °C were9.0 + 0.2, 7.4 + 0.1, 5.7 + 0.2 and 4.6 + 0.1 days, respectively. T. recki females became adult at35 °C but none of them laid eggs. Mean total and daily fecundity were the highest at 20 °C and30 °C, respectively. The net reproductive rate (R0) was the highest at 20 °C. The longest meangeneration time (T0) occurred at 20 °C and the shortest occurred at 30 °C. The highest intrinsicrate of increase (rm) for T. recki was observed at 30 °C.