Phytoseiulus persimilis depends on a diet of Tetranychus spider mites to thrive. It therefore has to rapidly find new prey once it has eradicated all that in a given area. The tendency to disperse increases as prey density decreases. Females move to new leaves after egg-laying while there is still prey left for her future offspring to eat. Two dispersal mechanisms have been identified: walking from leaf to leaf or plant to plant and being carried on wind currents.
When released onto touching chrysanthemum plants kept under glass, P. persimilis was found 15 metres away after about a week. Even when paths separated the plants, mites travelled 10 m within a week. Host plant identity can affect dispersal. On a cultivar of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) with stems densely covered with trichomes (hairs), most P. persimilis released became trapped in trichome exudate. The few that were not took 15 to over 120 minutes to reach the nearest leaf. All those released onto a smooth-stemmed form of Lycopersicon peruvianum reached the nearest leaf and took only an average of six minutes to do so.
Take-off for wind dispersal is evidently deliberate and not just a result of increases in air speed. Wind tunnel experiments suggest that it can be suppressed when mites detect evidence of prey presence. Gripping with the leg tarsal claws and the adhesive action of the pulvillus have been suggested as mechanisms to prevent involuntary take-off. A preparatory posture for wind dispersal has not been observed. In field-grown crops, P.persimilis has been caught on sticky traps 2.5 m above the ground and at least 0.5 m above the tops of the plants.
(Sabelis, 1985a; Sabelis and Dicke, 1985; Van de Vrie, 1985; Haren et al., 1987; Charles and White, 1988; Sabelis and Afman, 1994; Jung and Croft, 2001; Vanas et al., 2006)