PLANT TEXTURE AND PREY DENSITY OF THE TWO SPOTTED SPIDER MITE Tetranychus urticae KOCH AFFECTING THE FUNCTIONAL RESPONSE OF THE PREDATORY MITE Neoseiulus californicus (McGREGOR) (ACARI: PHYTOSEIDAE)

Effect of plant texture and prey density of the two spotted spider mite tetranychus urticae on the functional response of predatory mite neoseiulus californicus females was investigated using bean, soy bean, cotton, apple and eggplant. feeding capacity of female n. californicus was highly affected by the plant texture and prey density. results indicated that walking speed and activity of n. californicus declined when the predatory mite was reared on much hairy leaves compared with few hairy leaves. based on holling’s disk equation, the female showed search rate (á) was the highest value of 1.238 occurred at the eggplant, followed by the apple 1.127, bean 1.093 and soy bean 1.064, while the shortest search rate was 1.047 for the cotton. it is obvious that the handling time (th) per prey was shortest at bean (0.013 day) than that at all plants of soy bean (0.0144 day), cotton (0.0152 day), apple (0.0302 day) and eggplant (0.0567 day).