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Article Dans Une Revue Arthropod-Plant Interactions Année : 2020

Towards a standardized experimental protocol to investigate interactions between weed seeds and ground beetles (Carabidae, Coleoptera)

Résumé

Seed bank control is the mainspring of agricultural management practices. Using weeds seeds natural predators as a weed control strategy can be a valuable alternative to herbicide use. Among natural predators, ground beetles (Coleoptera, family Carabidae) have been claimed to be one of the most important invertebrate seeds predators in agroecosystems. However, information on the trophic relationship among these two large communities is fragmentary. Laboratory experiments have been conducted using a wide variety of protocols on a few ground beetle and weed seed species. To better characterize trophic relationship among these communities, a standardized and simple protocol is required. We propose a protocol to quantitatively assess weed seed consumption by ground beetles. Importantly, we explore parameters that should be optimized and fixed since they are not targeted, such as fasting time, test duration and substrate type. We also investigate whether, and under which conditions, tests may be replicated with the same individuals. Tests were carried out on five ground beetle species and eight weed seed species, though in the majority of tests Viola arvensis was used. Using climatic chambers, parameters such as temperature, humidity and photoperiod were fixed at 25 °C, 70% and 17-h/7-h day/night, respectively. Fasting time prior testing and test duration were fixed to 3 days and 24 h, respectively, to avoid mortality of ground beetle species that do not rely on seeds as their main food. Also, a recovery period of 24 h between successive tests is required when multiple tests are conducted on the same individuals. Among the substrate tested, we recommend to use sand as it appeared the most convenient substrate to conduct a large amount of replicated experiments.
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Dates et versions

hal-02364825 , version 1 (15-11-2019)

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Paul Deroulers, Bertrand Gauffre, S. Emeriau, A. Harismendy, V. Bretagnolle. Towards a standardized experimental protocol to investigate interactions between weed seeds and ground beetles (Carabidae, Coleoptera). Arthropod-Plant Interactions, 2020, 14 (1), pp.127-138. ⟨10.1007/s11829-019-09721-z⟩. ⟨hal-02364825⟩
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