Chelsea and Mary recently published a paper in the open access journal: PLOS ONE. This paper investigated the intraguild predation (IGP) hypothesis for native lady beetle decline. Previous studies have suggested that native lady beetles are declining due to predation on their eggs and larvae by exotic lady beetles. Through egg predation experiments we found that significantly more native lady beetle eggs were consumed by predators than exotic lady beetle eggs. However, using video surveillance, we discovered exotic lady beetles to be an uncommon predator, providing evidence against the IGP hypothesis for native lady beetle decline. Additionally, the guild of predators observed feeding on native and exotic lady beetle egg masses was diverse and interesting, which could lead to many more questions!
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