Lesson 10 – Providing Habitat for Predatory Insects and Wasp Parasitoids
Presentation Recording
Presenters
Ian Grettenberger, UC Davis, is an Assistant Cooperative Extension Specialist with UC Davis. He is a field and vegetable crops entomologist and has research and extension programs in a number of field and vegetable crops. He has a PhD in Entomology from Pennsylvania State University.
Michael Russell, Oregon State University, is a plant ecologist managing, with assistance from Caitlin Lawrence, the INR Cooperative Agreement with the BLM to sample vegetation across the range of the Greater Sage-Grouse in eastern Oregon. The program uses BLM AIM sampling protocols to assess the status and eventually trends of rangeland and Sage-Grouse habitat. Michael has 20 years of experience as a professional botanist in the Pacific Northwest. His dissertation focused on the landscape ecology of beneficial insects in western Oregon farmlands, and he studied the germination of native Willamette Valley prairie plants for his master's research. He also serves as the President of the Biodiversity Research Collaborative in Eugene, focusing on Pacific Northwest lichens.
Upon successfully completing this lesson, participants will be able to:
- Describe the kinds of farm conditions and habitat that support predatory mites, and hunting and weaving spiders.
- Describe how farm practices and different kinds of plants support Minute Pirate Bugs' food and reproductive needs
- Understand how flower morphology relates to floral resource availability for parasitoids.
- Identify those plants most likely to provide the floral resources.
Articles & Resources
- Managing Pests with Predator & Parasitoid Habitat Publication from WFA
- Habitat Planning for Beneficial Insects Publication from Xerces Society
- A meta-analysis of physiological and behavioral responses of parasitoid wasps to flowers of individual plant species by Russell, M. 2015
Videos
Photo at top: Parasitoid wasp and aphids. Photo by Scott Sherrill