{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,23]],"date-time":"2026-09-23T05:05:26Z","timestamp":1790139926343,"version":"4.0.1"},"reference-count":36,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"9","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,21]],"date-time":"2026-09-21T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1789948800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Ministry of Science and Technology of the People\u2019s Republic of China","id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/027s68j25","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/027s68j25","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"National Research Foundation of Korea","id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/013aysd81","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/013aysd81","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Insects"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The tomato leafminer, Tuta absoluta, is a globally important pest that causes severe losses in tomato production, and effective biological control strategies are increasingly needed due to widespread insecticide resistance. The effectiveness of natural enemies is influenced by plant structural traits, such as trichomes, which create complex microhabitats that shape predator\u2013prey interactions. Here, we compared the predatory performances, plant-level control efficacies, and predator\u2013plant interactions of two widely used biological control agents, Nesidiocoris tenuis and Chrysoperla carnea, against T. absoluta eggs on tomato and eggplant. In laboratory assays, predation capacity increased with predator developmental stage, with adult female N. tenuis and third-instar larvae of C. carnea exhibiting the highest species-specific predation rates. However, in whole-plant and semi-enclosed cage experiments, N. tenuis maintained substantial foraging activity, effectively suppressing T. absoluta on tomato plants, whereas C. carnea showed limited control efficacy, with 86.7% of larvae abandoning plants within 24 h. Conversely, C. carnea exhibited significantly higher predation rates than N. tenuis on eggplant, with minimal abandonment. Comparing plant surface architectures revealed that tomato leaves possessed substantially longer trichomes than eggplant leaves (4.14 vs. 0.48 mm), which restricted the foraging activity of C. carnea. Our results indicated that N. tenuis remains the preferable agent for tomato, while C. carnea is highly suitable for short-trichome-bearing solanaceous crops like eggplant. Crop surface characteristics strongly influence biological control effectiveness, and matching predator traits with crop architecture will improve the success of natural enemy-based pest management.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/insects17090974","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,22]],"date-time":"2026-09-22T17:56:41Z","timestamp":1790099801000},"page":"974","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Host Plant Trichome Architecture Mediates the Predatory Efficacies of Nesidiocoris tenuis and Chrysoperla carnea Against Tuta absoluta"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Juhyeok","family":"Lee","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Plant Medicine, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41566, Republic of Korea"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6000-4893","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Hwal-Su","family":"Hwang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Plant Medicine, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41566, Republic of Korea"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Lisheng","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100193, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4640-8330","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yuyan","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100193, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0534-1942","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Kyeong-Yeoll","family":"Lee","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Plant Medicine, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41566, Republic of Korea"},{"name":"Institute of Plant Medicine, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41566, Republic of Korea"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,21]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"197","DOI":"10.1007\/s10340-010-0321-6","article-title":"Biological invasion of European tomato crops by Tuta absoluta: Ecology, geographic expansion and prospects for biological control","volume":"83","author":"Desneux","year":"2010","journal-title":"J. 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