Insights into aphid prey consumption by ladybirds: Optimising field sampling methods and primer design for high throughput sequencing.

ABSTRACT: Elucidating the diets of insect predators is important in basic and applied ecology, such as for improving the effectiveness of conservation biological control measures to promote natural enemies of crop pests. Here, we investigated the aphid diet of two common aphid predators in Central European agroecosystems, the native Coccinella septempunctata (Linnaeus) and the invasive Harmonia axyridis (Pallas; Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) by means of high throughput sequencing (HTS). For acquiring insights into diets of mobile flying insects at landscape scale minimizing trapping bias is important, which imposes methodological challenges for HTS. We therefore assessed the suitability of three field sampling methods (sticky traps, pan traps and hand-collection) as well as new aphid primers for identi

SUBMITTER: Ammann L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7329105 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature