The two-spotted spider mite Tetranychus urticae is one of the most polyphagous and damaging pests worldwide. behaviour differs on its various host plants this could influence crop defence strategies. We investigated perception leaf morphology by T. in relation to effects visible light selection sites which females prefer live feed. Mite chose shaded surface when smooth glabrous lemon leaves wer...

Research on aboveground-belowground interactions has recently experienced a boost. In spite of the relative prosperity of scientific literature featuring aboveground herbivorous arthropods involved in abovegroundbelowground interactions, mites have so far been under-represented. To stimulate work with mites in this area, we summarize existing research on plant-mediated interactions of abovegrou...

Plants produce a wide range of allelochemicals to defend against herbivore attack, and generalist herbivores have evolved mechanisms to avoid, sequester, or detoxify a broad spectrum of natural defense compounds. Successful arthropod pests have also developed resistance to diverse classes of pesticides and this adaptation is of critical importance to agriculture. To test whether mechanisms to o...

Plants and herbivores are thought to be engaged in a coevolutionary arms race: rising frequencies of plants with anti-herbivore defences exert pressure on herbivores to resist or circumvent these defences and vice versa. Owing to its frequency-dependent character, the arms race hypothesis predicts that herbivores exhibit genetic variation for traits that determine how they deal with the defence...

The two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae Koch (Acari: Tetranychidae), is one of the most polyphagous herbivores feeding on cell contents of over 1100 plant species including more than 150 crops. It is being established as a model for chelicerate herbivores with tools that enable tracking of reciprocal responses in plant-spider mite interactions. However, despite their important pest sta...

The effects of three sulfur products (calcium polysulfide [= lime sulfur], dry flowable sulfur, and ammonium thiosulfate, a plant nutrient), were tested in bioassays against a predatory mite, Galandromus occidentalis (Nesbitt), and two species of tetranychid (pest) mites, twospotted spider mite (Tetranychus urticae Koch) and European red mite [Panonychus ulmi (Koch)]. Calcium polysulfide and am...

Despite an increasing number of studies documenting life-history evolution during range expansions or shifts, we lack a mechanistic understanding of the underlying physiological processes. In this explorative study, we used a metabolomics approach to study physiological changes associated with the recent range expansion of the two-spotted spider mite (Tetranychus urticae). Mite populations were...

Haplodiploid species display extraordinary sex ratios. However, a differential investment in male and female offspring might also be achieved by a differential provisioning of eggs, as observed in birds and lizards. We investigated this hypothesis in the haplodiploid spider mite Tetranychus urticae, which displays highly female-biased sex ratios. We show that egg size significantly determines n...