The effect of the artificial diets on Propylea japonica predation function
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Key Words：Propylea japonica， artificial diets， predation function
Abstract：Propylea japonica (Thunberg), subordinated to Coleoptera, Coccinellidae and Propylaea, preys on many pests in agriculture. Due to good appetite, high fecundity, high adaptability and many generations annually, P. japonica is one of the important predatory natural enemies in agriculture. The investigation on the predation functional response of P. japonica fed with different artificial diets or cotton aphids showed that the functional responses of P. japonica to cotton aphids all corresponded with HollingⅡ model pattern; The value of a'/Th (the ratio of attack rate to handling time) in P. japonica fed with the diet supplemented sucrose (diet 2) was higher than those of P. japonica fed with other artificial diets, which indicated that the ladybirds fed with diet 2had higher predatory capability than the others; and the predatory capability of the control group (cotton aphids) was significantly higher than those of the ladybirds fed with artificial diets.