Role of predatory ground beetles (Coleoptera : Carabidae)‎ in managing sugar beet pests

الملخص EN

Carabidae are represent about 40000 species throughout the world.

They feed on a diversity of prey such as, snails, larvae and pupae of Lepidoptera, Collembola, Cicadellidae, aphids, larvae and pupae of Coleoptera, larvae of Diptera and eggs of insects.

Carabids had little attention to be studied in Egyptian sugar beet fields.

Therefore, this work was undertaken for understanding the role of Carabidae in controlling sugar beet pests at Sakha Agricultural Research Station.

The results showed that the dominant carabid species were, Bembidion spp., Calosoma chlorostictum Degen.

Pterostichus pharao L.

Highly significant positive correlations between carabids and cotton leafworms, Agrotis ipsilon (Hufnagel) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) larvae, aphids, Cicadellidae, Collembola, Scrobipalpa ocellatella Boyd.( Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae), snails and Cassida vittata Vill.

(Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) during the three cultivations in 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 seasons.

The major trapped pests by carabids were S.ocellatella, cotton leaf worms, C.vittata, Pegomyia mixta Vill.

(Diptera: Anthomyiidae), Collembola, Cicadellidae, aphids, Nezara viridula L.

(Hemiptera : Pentatomidae) , A.

ipsilon and snails with 20, 13.84, 12.30, 10.76, 9.23, 7.69, 6.15, 4.61 and 4.61%, respectively in 2017/2018 seasons.

23.94, 15.49, 16.90, 12.67, 4.22, 5.63, 4.22, 7.04, 2.81 and 7.04%, respectively in 2018/2019.

Also, raner 24% Sc was reduced carabid number with 10.49 and 17.17% in two seasons, respectively as, the conventional insecticides; Tac 48% Ec and Diracomel 90% Sp were reduced carabid number with 99.44 and 98.28% in 2017/2018, 100 and 99.34% in 2018/2019.

In conclusion, these results proved that the importance of carabid species in managing sugar beet pests.

In addition to, ecdysone agonists (IGRs) conserve the population of these carabid species in comparison with conventional insecticides.

Thus, it is preferred to control sugar beet pests by spraying ecdysone agonists for maintaining the population of these predators.