Effects of flour mites feeding on powders of two insects and yeast on the life parameters of Stratiolaelaps scimitus

Stratiolaelaps scimitus is a polyphagous and soil-dwelling predatory mite that has been commercialized and widely used to control small pest insects and mites (Knapp et al. 2018; Xie et al. 2018). This mite can prey on acaroid mites (Park et al. 2021), thrips pupae (Zhang 2019), fungus gnat (Enkegaard et al. 1997), Drosophila eggs or larvae (Wang 2010) and bee mites (Rondeau et al. 2019) etc. As a kind of natural enemy with great potential, its artificial mass-production is very important, and large-scale population breeding of this mite is the premise of its commercial production and application. The nutritional level of substitute prey or diets is closely related to the growth, development and reproduction of predatory mites (Zhang et al. 2020; 2021). Therefore, the reproductive capacity and biological characteristics of predatory mites can be improved by improving the nutritional level of substitute prey or diets.