Effect of treating eggs of cotton bollworm with Bacillus thuringiensis Berliner on functional response of Trichogramma brassicae Bezdenko

Cotton bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera (Hübner) is a cosmopolite insect pest of a wide spectrum of crops such as cotton, maize, tomato, soybean, etc. Egg parasitoids mainly Trichogramma brassicae Bezdenko and Bacillus thuringiensis Berliner (Bt) are biological control agents, that are used as components of sustainable and environmentally compatible IPM systems. Although Bt does not come in direct contact with egg parasitoids, it may persist within the host’s body and affect the quality of the host’s eggs via biochemical changes in their mother and possibly behaviour and potency of the parasitoids. In this study, the functional response of T. brassicae to different densities of H. armigera eggs was investigated in two sets of experiments at 26?±?1?°C, 65?±?5% RH, and 16: 8?h photoperiod. The first group was a control and the second one were eggs laid by hosts treated as 3rd instar larvae with LC₂₀ of Bt (determined as 9.8?×?10^5?IU/l of artificial diet based on a preliminary bioassay). A type III functional response was observed in both treatments with a direct density dependent mortality up to eight host eggs and an inverse one upward. Both handling time and searching efficiency were affected by Bt treatment as the handling time was increased by a factor of 1.5 and the searching efficiency was decreased by a factor of 0.6. The searching efficiencies were 0.0310?±?0.003 and 0.0182?±?0.005?h^?1, and handling times were 1.134?±?0.042 and 1.672?±?0.082?h in control and Bt treatment respectively.