Susceptibility of adults of Anticarsia gemmatalis Hübner, 1818 (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) to the entomopathogenic nematode Steinernema rarum (Doucet, 1986) Mamiya, 1988 (Rhabditida: Steinernematidae) under laboratory conditions.

CAGNOLO, SUSANA R.; PESCHIUTTA, MARÍA L.; BERTOLOTTI, MARÍA A.

NEMATOLOGY

BRILL ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS

Lugar: Leiden; Año: 2011 vol. 13 p. 373 - 376

1388-5545

Soybean is attacked by a great diversity of pests that cause economically important damage from seed germination through to maturity. The velvetbean caterpillar Anticarsia gemmatalis, a foliage-feeding insect, attacks the upper part of the plant. Nowadays, biological control agents are used against A. gemmatalis. The objective of this work was to evaluate the susceptibility of A. gemmatalis adults to the entomopathogenic nematode Steinernema rarum (OLI strain) under laboratory conditions. Three nematode doses were applied: 0 (control), 50 and 500 IJ host-1. Fifteen insects per dose were evaluated. Insect mortality was recorded every 24 h. The IJ emerging from each infected insect were counted using the volumetric dilution technique. Mortality of A. gemmatalis adults caused by S. rarum OLI was 80% at a dose of 500 IJ insect and 33.3% at 50 IJ insect-1. No mortality was recorded in the untreated control. The present results show that the adult of A. gemmatalis is a favourable host for S. rarum (OLI strain) since it provides the nematode with the necessary conditions to continue development and persist.Death of adults involves the interruption of the insects life cycle, preventing the production of offspring and limiting population density. Furthermore, the emergence of a high number of IJ from the insect, naturally released to the environment, would increase the chances for the nematodes to persist in the habitat.