Abstract. Herbivory is known to induce the production of volatiles in the plant. These signals are thought to betray herbivores to their predators, which are then attracted or arrested near the plant under attack. Evidence for involvement of herbivore-induced plant volatiles in predator recruitment is
largely based on experiments with olfactometers designed to demonstrate a response to odors, not to elucidate the behavioral mechanisms used to locate the source. Since the mechanisms underlying orientation may well operate at a spatial scale beyond that considered in the lab, experiments
are required to unravel the tactic and kinetic responses in carefully designed laboratory experiments at a larger scale and to assess the responses under more realistic (greenhouse, field) conditions. We discuss experiments showing the role of odor-conditioned anemotaxis, actic/kinetic responses to odor gradients, odor-conditioned landing and take-off responses, as well as the role of hunger, associative learning and innate responses in predatory mites.
Index terms: behaviour, foraging, infochemicals, phytoseiid mites, predators, tritrophic interactions.
Species 1: Acari
Keywords: Pheromones, attractants
The ESA 2001 Annual Meeting - 2001: An Entomological Odyssey of ESA