ROLE OF ORB-WEB WEAVER SPIDERS IN CONTROLLING THE PESTS OF THE EARLY SUGAR BEET PLANTATION IN KAFR EL-SHEIKH REGION

The current investigation was carried out during 2012/13 and 2013/14 sugar beet seasons at the experimental farm of sakha agricultural research station and laboratory of plant protection department, faculty of agriculture, tanta university for identifying the arthropods (insect pests and acari) trapped in spider webs. most of trapped arthropods pests were collembolan (48.08%), followed by aphids (aphis gossypii (glover) and others) (25.64%). moderate number of cicadellids (12.82%), thrips tabaci lind. (4.81%), spodoptera littoralis (boisd.) larvae (3.21%), spodoptera exigua (hubn.) larvae (2.88%) and tetranychus sp. (2.56%). also, eight spider species, belonging to five families were surveyed. the highest family was araneidae which contained three species, araneus sp., argiope trifasciata forscall and singa sp. followed by linyphiidae was represented by two species (bathyphantes sp. and erigone sp.). each of amaurobiidae (amaurobius sp.), dictynidae (dictyna sp.) and theridiidae (theridion sp.) had one species only. finally, these results show the importance of spider webs in capturing sugar beet pests, consequently, play a major role in controlling pests without use of any pesticides.