Survival and Reproductive Strategies in Two-Spotted Spider Mites: Demographic Analysis of Arrhenotokous Parthenogenesis of Tetranychus Urticae (Acari: Tetranychidae)

Abstract

Tetranychus urticae Koch is a cosmopolitan pest whose rapid developmental rate enables it to produce colonies of thousands of individuals within a short time period. When a solitary virgin female colonizes a new host plant, it is capable of producing male offspring through the arrhenotokous parthenogenesis; once her sons mature, oedipal mating occurs and the female will produce bisexual offspring. To analyze the effect of arrhenotokous reproduction on population growth, we devised and compared separate life tables for arrhenotokous and bisexual populations ofT. urticae using the age-stage, two-sex life table theory. For the cohort with bisexual reproduction, the intrinsic rate of increase (r), finite rate (lambda), net reproductive rate (R-0), and mean generation time (T) were 0.2736 d(-1), 1.3146 d(-1), 44.66 offspring, and 13.89 d, respectively. Because only male eggs were produced during the first 8 d of the oviposition period and the cohort would soon begin bisexual reproduction, it would be theoretically wrong to calculate the population parameters using the survival rate and fecundity of an arrhenotokous cohort. We demonstrated that the effect of arrhenotokous reproduction could be accurately described and evaluated using the age-stage, two-sex life table. We also used population projection based on life table data, quantitatively showing the effect that arrhenotokous reproduction has on the growth potential and management ofT. urticae.