Characteristics of Effective Bio-Control Agents

Characteristics of
Bio-control Agents
CHARACTERISTICS OF BIO-CONTROL
AGENTS
 The classical practice of introduction exotic
beneficial organisms or pest suppression is the
only useful method.
 While introducing beneficial organisms,
 the concern of the desirable characteristics
of a natural enemies,
 and a consideration of some basic ecological
principal
 have bearing on success or failure of biological
pest-suppression programs.
AGENTS
In order to search for efficient

beneficial organisms for use in
biological insect pest
suppression’
 it requires some idea
beforehand that what we are
seeking.
AGENTS
 Before introducing new natural enemies
from exotic locations’ or analyzing those
species which are already present for
same way of augmenting their usefulness,
 we must know their characteristics of
species to display an efficient regulatory
relationship with the pest.
 Thus, proper selection of natural enemies
of insect/weed is an important part of
success of Biocontrol.
AGENTS
1) Ecological Compatibility:
 It is usually important to seek species
whose ecological requirements are similar
to those of the intended target insect.
 Parasitoids are frequently limited in
effectiveness and have greater sensitivity
to cold; desiccation, heat etc. and hence
it is of great consideration for parasite
species to withstand such condition
suitable for the host.
AGENTS
 Disparity in ecological responses may be an
important limiting factor in the
effectiveness of native beneficial
organisms and
 an environment manipulation of some sort
may make them successful regulative
agents
 e.g. high humidity by irrigation for
development of pathogenic fungi against
alfalfa aphids.
Biotic and abiotic factors involves in fungal infection and in
disease development processes.
Ghulam Ali Bugti, Wang Bin, Shafique Ahmed Memon, Ghulam Khaliq and
Muhammad Abuzar Jaffar. 2020. Entomopathogenic Fungi: Factors Involved in
Successful Microbial Control of Insect Pests. J. of Entomology, 17: 74-83.
Note the difference in the bars with lines
I.M. Brown and R. Gaugler. 1997. Temperature and Humidity Influence Emergence
and Survival of Entomopathogenic Nematodes. Nematologica 43: 363-375.
Wax moth mortality in soils inoculated with various
nematode species at two prehydration soil. Arrows
represent rehydration to 15.3% moisture at 7 wk.
JENNIFER A. GRANT AND MICHAEL G. VILLANI. 2003. Soil
Moisture Effects on Entomopathogenic Nematodes. Environ.
Entomol. 32(1): 80-87.
AGENTS
 Climatic adaptability.
Natural enemies must be able to
survive and perform at the
extremes of temperature and
humidity that they will
encounter in the new habitat.
Prey consumption by lady beetle Effect of temperature on food consumption
SU WANG, XIAO-LING TAN, XIAO-JUN GUO,AND FAN ZHANG. 2013. Effect of

Temperature and Photoperiod on the Development, Reproduction, and Predation of
the Predatory Ladybird Cheilomenes sexmaculata (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae). J.
Econ. Entomol. 106(6): 2621-2629.
 For comprehensive information see
the following
 Thierry Hance,Joan van Baaren,

Philippe Vernon and Guy Boivin.
2007. Impact of Extreme
Temperature on Parasitoids in a
Climate Change Perspective. Annu.
Rev. Entomol. 52:107–26.
AGENTS
 Reproductive strategies
 "r" strategists may be better BC
agents in "disturbed" ecosystems
 such as short term crops (i.e.,
vegetables)
 "K" strategists may be better BC
agents in long term ecosystems (i.e.,
orchard crops and forests)
REPRODUCTIVE STRATEGIES
POPULATION GROWTH CURVES
REPRODUCTIVE STRATEGIES
r and K selection.docx
AGENTS
 2) Temporal Synchronization:
 The pest and its natural enemies should
be in the same place at the same time,
 and also their life cycles must be
synchronized for adequate regulation to
be possible.
 E. g. the reproductive stage of a
successful egg parasitoid must be active
at the time of the hosts egg in every
generation of the host.
AGENTS
 The efficacy of poorly synchronized
organism may sometimes be improved.
 The practice of periodic inundative
release of beneficial insects is another
way of artificially synchronizing the
occurrence of parasitoid and host
 e.g. release of Trichogramma spp.
AGENTS
 Synchrony with host (prey) life
cycle.
 The predator or parasite should

be present when the pest first
emerges or appears.
AGENTS
 3) Density Responsiveness:
The most desirable biological control

agents should exhibit positive rapid
density responsiveness.
 Proportion of natural enemy of pest
should be maintained.
 Generally natural enemies have short
life cycle, whereas pest has long life
cycles.
AGENTS
 A strong functional response refers to
within generation behavioral activity of
the individual parasitoid or predator in
increasing its attacks against
increasingly numerous hosts or prey,
 on the other hand, numerical response
refers largely to a multigenerational
reproductive increase by the organism
in response to increasing host density.
AGENTS
 A rapid and strong numerical
response characteristic is the
most important characteristics
of a successful agent of pest
mortality.
Functional response, Type III of the beetle Polistes dominulus
DOMINIQUE SCHENK and SVEN BACHER. 2002. Functional response of a

generalist insect predator to one of its prey species in the field. Journal
of Animal Ecology 71, 524–531.
Tomato
Prickly lettuce
Functional response of E. delhiensis on tomato and prickly lettuce to

different densities of T. vaporariorum.
Jafar Ebrahimifar, Arsalan Jamshidnia and Hossein Allahyari. 2017.

Functional Response of Eretmocerus delhiensis (Hymenoptera:
Aphelinidae) on Trialeurodes vaporariorum (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) by
Parasitism and Host Feeding. Journal of Insect Science 17(2): 56; 1–5.
AGENTS
 Survival at low host (prey)
density.
 If a natural enemy is too efficient, it
may eliminate its own food supply and
then starve to death.
 The most effective biocontrol agents
reduce a pest population below its
economic threshold and then maintain
it at this lower equilibrium level.
AGENTS
 4) Reproductive Potential:
One important factor in the display of

density responsiveness is high reproductive
capacity through either short generation
time, high fecundity or both.
 In most cases, the parasitoid or predator is
searched with an innate potential for
increase greater than that of the host/prey.
 For better understanding,
 Check out the fecundity, life span and
generations per year/ season of
different lady beetle or different
predatory beetle, or different
parasitoid species.
 The Asian lady beetles can live for 30 to 90 days
in the wild.
 Pink spotted ladybeetle adult females lay about
200 to more than 1,000 eggs during their 1 to 3
month life span. Development time from an egg
to reproductive adult is 3 to 4 weeks
AGENTS
 5) Searching Capacity:
 The ability to find host/prey at low
density has significant bearing on the long
term success of organism in the more
stable situations.
 A beneficial organism which can
successfully utilize low density population
and reduce its number through efficient
searching behavior is a desirable key
regulative agent to be sought.
AGENTS
 A true ideal beneficial insect would
possess both high reproductive potential
and good searching capacity,
 but in case of successful biological control
full utilization of former factor rarely
comes into play,
 because of low pest densities and
efficient searching ability becomes the
primary characteristic because it
maintains those low densities.
AGENTS
 6) Dispersal Capacity:
 The ability of an introduced
beneficial species to easily and
rapidly expand its sphere in space to
coincide with that of the host is
closely tied to its searching capacity
and ecology adaptability.
 Most good biological control agents
have high dispersal capability.
Probability of egg parasitism by T.
pretiosum females dispersing from a
central release point (distance from
center 5 0) in a cabbage plot in relation
to wind speed .15 km/h for less than (A)
or more than (B) 8 h. Wind direction also
influenced probability of parasitism; the
wind blows from the bottom to the top
of the figure.
FRANCOIS FOURNIER AND GUY BOIVIN. 2000.

Comparative Dispersal of Trichogramma
evanescens and Trichogramma
pretiosum (Hymenoptera:
Trichogrammatidae) in Relation to
Environmental Conditions. Environ. Entomol.
29(1): 55—63 (2000)
Note decrease in parasitism from zero distance to 300 cm
distance from release point.
Hassan, K. A.; S. M. Hashim1; Inas M. Y. Mostafa; A. S. Sanad

and Naglaa F. Abdel-Hameid. 2018. Assessment of Dispersal
and Parasitism of the Laboratory Reared Trichogramma
evanescens West. under Field Conditions. J. Plant Prot. and
Path., Mansoura Univ., 9 (5): 297 – 299.
AGENTS
 7) Host Specificity and Compatibility:
A parasitoid or predator which is

monophagous or Oligophagous indicates a
high degree of biological adaptation to
the host and
 probably a greater degree of direct and
rapid responsiveness to density changes in
the population of the target host.
AGENTS
 Host specificity is closely tied with
compatibility, that is the degree of
biological adaptation.
 Monophagous natural enemies have

usually evolved a high degree of
adaptation to the defensive
mechanisms of their host/prey.
AGENTS
 Predator with polyphagous nature
will do the purpose.
 Compatibility refers to combination

of unnatural enemies. Likewise lady
bird beetles should not eat
Trichogramma spp.
AGENTS
 Narrow host range.
 Generalized predators may be
good natural enemies, but
 they don't kill enough pests
when other types of prey are
also available.
AGENTS
 BC agents which are specific to a
given host are inherently closely
attuned to the host species and are
responsive to changes only in the
host species
 Problems may be encountered by a
specific BC agent at low host
densities when a less specific agent
can switch over to other hosts to
maintain its numbers.
AGENTS
 A high degree of specificity may be
correlated with less adaptability to
environmental change or spread.
 Recent concerns among nature
conservationists are pressuring biological
control researchers to introduce only
natural enemies with very limited host /
prey ranges to avoid non-target impacts on
desirable.
AGENTS
 8) Food Requirements and Habitats:

 This characteristics is another
consideration in choosing a potentially
useful beneficial organisms.
 For sustenance of natural enemy some
sort of food should be available to
natural enemy like pollen, honey etc.
and also shattering places.
AGENTS
 9) Hyperparasitism:
 This is a negative attribute to be
avoided in selecting Biocontrol
agents.
 To eliminate secondary parasitoids
under certain situations
Hyperparasitism is most important
one.
AGENTS
 10) Cultureability
 This is an important
attribute indicating
ability of organism which can be mass
reared under artificial condition for
large scale release programs.
 Hence the introduced species must
be cultureable in the laboratory.
AGENTS
 11. Provision 0f control for
extended period
 There are mixed feelings with

respect to the desirability of a
biological control agent to become
established, recycle and provide
control for an extended period.
AGENTS
 This would certainly appear to be
desirable from the standpoint of
minimizing the need for other
methods of control.
 However, there may be less
incentive for commercialization of a
product that only needs to be
applied a single time.
AGENTS
 12. Not harmful to environment
 One should not assume that just

because a product is natural or
biological that it is safe to use in all
situations.
 For example, some natural
insecticides such as pyrethrins can
be harmful to fish.
AGENTS
 Many biological insecticides
contain proteins and other
substances to which some could
become allergic, as is possible
with products containing
shellfish.
AGENTS
 13. Short handling time.
 Natural enemies that consume prey
rapidly or lay eggs quickly have more time
to locate and attack other members of
the pest population.
 Small populations of efficient natural
enemies may be more effective biocontrol
agents than larger populations of less
efficient species.
AGENTS
 Based on these general
characteristics,
 generalist predators would be less
well- suited for classical biological
control,
 because they have lower rates of
increase and are frequently not
synchronized with the pest.
AGENTS
 In fact, even parasitoids that have
been successfully used for biological
control do not possess some of these
characteristics.
 These characteristics are quite
general and research in particular
systems has shown that seemingly
minor differences in biologies can
make big differences in efficacy for
control.

Characteristics of Effective Bio-Control Agents

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Characteristics of Effective Bio-Control Agents

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Characteristics of

In order to search for efficient

SU WANG, XIAO-LING TAN, XIAO-JUN GUO,AND FAN ZHANG. 2013. Effect of

 Thierry Hance,Joan van Baaren,

 The predator or parasite should

The most desirable biological control

DOMINIQUE SCHENK and SVEN BACHER. 2002. Functional response of a

Functional response of E. delhiensis on tomato and prickly lettuce to

Jafar Ebrahimifar, Arsalan Jamshidnia and Hossein Allahyari. 2017.

One important factor in the display of

FRANCOIS FOURNIER AND GUY BOIVIN. 2000.

Hassan, K. A.; S. M. Hashim1; Inas M. Y. Mostafa; A. S. Sanad

A parasitoid or predator which is

 Monophagous natural enemies have

 Compatibility refers to combination

 8) Food Requirements and Habitats:

 There are mixed feelings with

 One should not assume that just

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