An Old Case Reopened: Mite Stimulation by Insecticide Residues

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
A P-generation of female Tetranychus urticae Koch kept on residues of a 200 ppm spray of carbaryl, 100 ppm DDT, and 25 ppm dioxacarb showed significantly (carbaryl and DDT) higher egg-totals than their untreated controls. With dioxacarb the increase of egg production was marginal in the statistical analysis. The ratio females/males in the F 1 was shifted in favor of the females in the broods reared on carbaryl and DDT residues, but not in the case of dioxacarb. This increase in the female proportion is highly significant for carbaryl with the strongest shift and DDT with a lesser one. Adult females of the F 1 , too, had a significantly higher egg production on carbaryl and DDT than their untreated counterparts. Hormoligosis—stimulation by small quantities of a stressor—is assumed responsible for observed effects, not an improved nutritional basis via an altered physiology of the host plant.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: