Combined use of zoophytophagous mirids for sustainable biological protection of greenhouse tomato crops

Table 3 Response of the proportions of attacked leaves by T. absoluta, and of the number of necrotic rings and the proportion of aborted flowers due to N. tenuis to the initial density of M. pygmaeus introduced, the time (date of the sampling), the presence of D. errans as well as all the pairwise interaction (GLMM following a negative binomial distribution). (-) parameters not included in the model

Explanatory variables	d.f	Proportion of leaves attacked by T. absoluta		Number of necrotic rings caused by N. tenuis		Proportion of aborted flowers due to N. tenuis
Explanatory variables	d.f	χ²	P	χ²	P	χ²	P
1st generation
M. pygmaeus density * D. errans presence	1	0.00450	0.95	0.0547	0.82	0.767	0.38
M. pygmaeus density	1	9.60	0.0020 ** a	0.368	0.54	0.249	0.87
D. errans presence	1	8.11	0.0044 ** a	1.51	0.22	1.12	0.29
2nd generation
M. pygmaeus density * D. errans presence	1	0.522	0.47	0.00072	0.99	0.825	0.36
M. pygmaeus density	1	0.196	0.66	5.83	0.016 * c	6.70	0.00907** e
D. errans presence	1	6.87	0.0086** b	0.0946	0.76	0.0101	0.92
3rd generation
M. pygmaeus density * D. errans presence	1	0.00630	0.97	0.00120	0.97
M. pygmaeus density	1	0.0935	0.76	6.12	0.013 * d
D. errans presence	1	3.19	0.074	19.7	< 0.001 *** d

^** P < 0.01; *** P < 0.001; ‘–’ effects not tested
Model coefficients: a Intercept − 1.11; Mp15 0.388; De − 0.355. b Intercept − 1.62; De − 0.341. c Intercept − 0.975 Mp15 0.915. ‘Mp15′ 15 M. pygmaeus initially introduced per plant; ‘De’ D. errans present. c Intercept 1.99; Mp15 − 0.149. e Intercept − 0.976; Mp15 − 0.332. ‘Mp15′ 15 M. pygmaeus initially introduced per plant; ‘De’ D. errans present. Models used were generalised linear mixed models with a binomial error distribution for proportion of attacked leaves and proportion of aborted flower, and with a negative binomial error distribution for number of necrotic rings. Generation time of pests causing damage: T. absoluta and N. tenuis 3 weeks (1st generation Weeks 1–3; 2nd generation Weeks 4–6; 3rd generation Weeks 7–8). Flowers were only counted in Weeks 1 to 5

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