Ambulatory dispersal and life history response to food deprivation in twospotted spider mites
1990
Krainacker, David A. | Carey, James R.
A major life history characteristic of the twospotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae Koch, is the ability to disperse between different hosts. This may be done by aerial or ambulatory means. Although there have been a number of studies dealing with mite dispersal, most have been qualitative in nature and examine only the overall process. In this study we measure the ambulatory dispersal capabilities of twospotted spider mite adult females and males, as well as that of deutonymphs, protonymphs and larvae at distances up to 480 cm. Additionally, for adult females only vertical (upwards and downwards) distances of up to 240 cm were measured. We also measured the influence of food deprivation on spider mite longevity and fecundity by depriving mites of food for one, two or three days immediately after ecdysis at 24 or 30 °C, or food deprivation for one, two or three days (at 24 °C) after feeding as adults for five days. Dispersal efficiency, defined as the percentage of individuals successfully crossing the test distance, generally increased with time and decreased with distance. As expected, dispersal efficiency was shown to be related to stage, with adults the most efficient and larvae the least. Food deprivation studies revealed that at 24 °C mites were capable of withstanding two days without food before longevity and fecundity began to decrease.
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