Feeding efficiency of Chilocorus nigrita on Aspidiotus rigidus, Aspidiotus destructor, and Aspidiotus excisus

• Main Authors: Co, Wilfred Alwyn A., Dy, George Brian A., Java, Danica Faye C.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2018
• Subjects: Coconut > Diseases and pests > Philippines; Coconut industry > Diseases and pests > Philippines; Copra industry > Diseases and pests > zPhilippines; Aspidiotus; Biology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/6511
• Institution: De La Salle University

Philippines belongs to the top five leading coconut producers in the world. In 2009, it was threatened by the infestations of Aspidiotus rigidus, a coconut scale insect (CSI) which lead to several outbreaks and a decline of production of coconut resulting to billions of pesos loss in the Philippine agricultural economy. Moreover, chemical procedures to address the problem were dismissed and the act of using safer and a cost effective biocontrol were given more importance. This research aimed to investigate the feeding efficiency of Chilocorus nigrita (Ladybird beetle) adults and larva on Aspidiotus rigidus, Aspidiotus destructor, and Aspidiotus excisus, to come up with a biocontrol measure for CSI infestations. It mainly involved No-choice test and Choice tests. One-way Anova and Tukey-Kramer were used to know if there are significant differences between treatments. The results of the study showed that A excisus was the most preferred scale insect by adult and larva. C nigrita having feeding effeciency of 51.5% and 95.36% respectively. Overall the study showed that C nigrita is directly associated with Aspidiotus spp. but appeared to have preference on A. excisus.