COMPATIBILITY OF Beauveria bassiana AND Metarhizium anisopliae WITH Chrysoperla externa DEPREDATOR OF Trialeurodes vaporariorum

Abstract

Trialeurodes vaporariorum (Westwood) is a key pest in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) crops, and it is mainly controlled by insecticides. Nowadays, there are biological control products for this pest, such as predators and entomopathogenic fungi. However, they are not used extensively because more studies are required for their implementation. Therefore, this study evaluated the compatibility under laboratory conditions of Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anisopliae with Chrysoperla externa Hagen, a predator of T. vaporariorum nymphaea. The experiment was conducted using a completely randomized experimental design with three treatments and eight replicates. The treatments consisted of concentrations of 1x105 , 1x107 and 1x108 conidias mL-1 for each entomopathogen, and one control treatment with distillated water and Tween 80 (0.1%) for larval stages I, II and III of the predator. No statistical differences were found in the corrected mortality of stages II and III of C. externa larvae exposed to the different concentrations of B. bassiana, or for the larval stage of C. externa exposed to different concentrations of M. anisopliae (P ? 0.05). The mean mortality rates observed in the whole test were under 15% and 10% for B. bassiana and M. anisopliae, respectively. These results showed that C. externa could be used as an entomophagous insect into a T. vaporariorum integrated management system, combined with B. bassiana and M. anisopliae.