Studies on Ground Beetles as Predatory Enemy to Turfgrass Insect Pests

Abstract

To investigate possibilities of the biological control against tuf grass insect pests by native predatory natural enemies, bionomics of ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) were studied at three golf courses in Shizuoka prefecture for two years and also some laboratory tests were carried out.
The field researches were carried out at three golf courses from June to October in 1997 and 1998. We investigated to make the species catalogue of the ground beetles and to examine the relation between seasonal population changes two lepidopteran pests of turf grass, Spodoptera depravata, Pediasia teterrellus and the ground beetles.
The results are as follows;
1) In our researches, there were many ground beetles in the golf courses. The number of species and population of the ground beetles were affected by the environmental factors and control strategy to the pests of each golf course.
2) However, in our field researches, we could not show the relationship between ground beetles and lepidopteran pests.
3) On the other hands, the predatoon test of the beetle against S. depravata in the laboratory conditions showed these beetles could predate the lepidopteran pests vigrously. From this result, ground beetles will be able to expect that they have a sufficient faculty to control lepidopteran turf grass pests in the field condition.