COLONIZATION, RECOVERY & EVALUATION

OF NATURAL ENEMIES

Colonization
Refers to the field release and manipulation of imported natural enemies for their establishment,
and to favor their spread and increase in a new environment.

It provide adequate numbers of natural enemies to insure its demand and propagation that may
provide greatest coverage to kill target insect pest.

Insectary propagation of imported natural enemies used repeated introductions followed by their
direct and periodic release in the field.

Direct releases are not encouraged by some biological control workers.

Methods of Colonization of Natural enemies

All activities designed to increase the no. of or to check the effect of existing natural enemies.
For this purpose there are 4 methods for colonization of natural enemies to achieve greater no. of
natural enemies and its effectiveness
1: Inoculative Release: It may be made as infrequently as once in a year to re-establish a
natural enemies which is periodically killed out in an area by unfavorable conditions.
2: Inundative Release: It involve mass release of natural enemies to suppress the pest
population directly, these are more economical against pests that have only or few discrete
generations every year e.g. massive release of wasp spp.
3: Accretive Release: The periodic colonization of small no. of natural enemies against low
populations of pest. This method is mostly used to control pests in Sugarcane.
4: Supplementary Release: The release of natural enemies when target pests begun to escape
from the control of natural enemies.
Re-establishment of control is expected from the release or the progeny immediately produced by
the release
 Factors affecting the Colonization of natural enemies
1. Failure of natural enemies to adapt the climate of the release area.
2. Competition b/wtwo parasitoids for common host.
3. Lack of synchronization(operate at same time)between host and natural enemy.
4. Shelter for the colonized natural enemy
5. A host species may be physiologically unsuited to parasitoid development;
6. A highly developed dispersal habit may retard or prevent establishment.

Recovery
1. Recovery may take the form of field observations of the natural enemy.
2. Parasitoids may be reared from field-collected hosts.
3. Dissection of field-collected hosts may reveal parasitism, and sweep-net or suction
machine sampling for adult parasitoids and predators can reveal the species' presence in an
area.
Evaluation
There is continued efforts being made in biological control to devise techniques for quantitatively
evaluating the effect of natural enemies on pest populations in the field.

Purpose of evaluation of natural enemies

It can be done due to following reasons:

1. To show the value and short comings of existing natural enemies.

2. To provide insights into the principles of population ecology relating to the interplay of biotic
factors.
3. To demonstrate the effectiveness of natural enemies.
 Methods of Evaluation
For this purpose we use following methods
1. Correlation: In this method we correlate the population of natural enemies with target pest and
its relationship to check the rate of damage done by pest and for crop yield which tell us about
the effectiveness of natural enemies.
2. Comparison: The use of experimental techniques in demonstrating the regulatory abilities of
natural enemies either by introducing them or removing them to show their impacts on crop yield
and population of insect pests.
3. Modeling: The use of models through which we can enhance the no. of natural enemies like the
• Conservation of natural enemies
• Protection of natural enemies from pesticides
• Use of pesticides resistant natural enemies
• Maintenance of diversity and necessary of Hosts
• Availability of Alternative host to natural enemies
• Availability of natural food like nectar, pollen and honeydew
• Artificial food supplements
• Artificial shelter
• Avoidance of dust