Effect of single and mixed diets on the fitness of omnivorous thrips, Thrips tabaci (Thys.: Thripidae)

Food choice in omnivorous animals is influenced by the balance of nutritional needs, food availability, and quality of a particular food items. Here, we study whether omnivorous onion thrips, Thrips tabaci Lindeman, feed on the eggs of its competitor Tetranychus urticae Koch (Acari: Tetranychidae) when an alternative supplemental source is, or is not, available. Thrips were either fed a cucumber leaf alone, or this diet was supplemented with pollen, mite eggs, or both. We demonstrated that the supplemental food sources improved several fitness-determining traits of thrips with pollen, being nutritionally superior to mite eggs. Pollen reduced the development time and increased the population growth of thrips compared to mite eggs. When both pollen and mite eggs were available, thrips fed on both; pollen to improve nutritional status and eggs to eliminate the opponent, despite the latter’s consisting lower of nutritional benefit. In all, this study showed that omnivorous thrips benefit from a cucumber leaf diet that is supplemented with other food sources and that pollen and mite eggs increase several fitness traits and positively affect the dynamics of future thrips generations.