Do honey and pollen enhance the reproductive performance of ladybugs? A case study on Tenuisvalvae notata (Mulsant, 1850) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae)

Coccinellids (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) are omnivorous insects. In addition to their primary prey, which is the essential food, they also consume alternative foods such as pollen, honey, and fungi. Recent studies have suggested that the combination of essential and alternative foods optimizes the performance of coccinellids, with the alternative food acting as a supplement, in the absence of the essential one. The alternative food would be actively sought, even if the essential one was abundant, as the simultaneous consumption of both would improve the predator's performance. Tenuisvalvae notata (Mulsant, 1850) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) is an important predator, primarily of mealybugs. To test the hypothesis, we carried out an experiment that consisted of three treatments: adult females of T. notata fed only with the mealybug Ferrisia dasylirii (Cockerell, 1896) (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae); with F. dasylirii  + pollen; or with F. dasylirii  + bee honey. There was no statistical difference among the three treatments regarding periods of pre-oviposition (5.4, 5.2, and 5.0 days, respectively), oviposition (15.7, 8.8, and 15.7 days, respectively), and post-oviposition (16.4, 21.9, and 16.6 days, respectively), longevity (36.2, 38.0, and 32.3 days, respectively), and fertility (75.3%, 71.4%, and 73.7%, respectively) of T. notata females. Supplementation of the essential food with pollen significantly reduced fecundity (33.7 eggs/female) in relation to honey and the essential food alone (50.9 and 51.8 eggs/female, respectively), which, in turn, did not differ from each other. The results refuted the hypothesis that alternative food would optimize the reproductive performance of T. notata females.