Occurrence of natural enemies in maize and the predatory potential of selected arthropods against fall armyworm in Multan, Pakistan

The fall armyworm has emerged as a major invasive pest of maize in multiple regions of Africa and Asia, affecting the crop at different stages. Pesticides have been widely used to manage fall armyworm in maize, however, there is always a need to explore other management options, including biological control. The current study aimed to explore the occurrence of the biological control agents in maize field, along with the predatory activity of selected groups under lab conditions. For live observations of the predatory arthropods in the field, weekly observations were made from five different maize fields located in Multan. For estimating predatory potential, selected groups of predators were collected using hand picking method and released in the Petri dishes under laboratory conditions. Diversity indices including the Shannon’s and Simpson’s diversity indices, showed significant differences in diversity of predators across various months and sites. The abundance of arthropod predators was significantly higher during September, October, March, and April. During fall 2022, spiders, red ants and lady bird beetles showed higher abundance followed by rove beetles and black ants. During spring 2023, spiders showed the highest mean abundance followed by red ants, rove beetles and lady bird beetles. The laboratory predation experiments showed lady bird beetles as an effective predator against the 1st larval instar of fall armyworm, followed by spiders and black ants, respectively. Results of the current study will help to identify the beneficial insects providing natural control of fall armyworm.