Role of supplemental foods and habitat structural complexity in persistence and coexistence of generalist predatory mites

Variation in the strength of intraguild predation (IGP) may be related to habitat structural complexity and to additional resources outside the narrow predator-prey relationship. We studied the food web interactions on grape, which involves two generalist predatory mites. We evaluated the effects of grape powdery mildew (GPM) as supplemental food, and habitat structural complexity provided by domatia. Our findings suggest that structural and nutritional diversity/complexity promote predatory mite abundance and can help to maintain the beneficial mites - plants association. The effect of these factors on coexistence between predators is influenced by the supplemental food quality and relative differences in body size of interacting species.