Pierre:

Yes, they could in some sense be considered as biocontrol agent: Kindly see this link:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/aen.12240/abstract?systemMessage=WOL+Usage+report+download+page+will+be+unavailable+on+Friday+27th+January+2017+at+23%3A00+GMT%2F+18%3A00+EST%2F+07%3A00+SGT+%28Saturday+28th+Jan+for+SGT%29++for+up+to+2+hours+due+to+essential+server+maintenance.+Apologies+for+the+inconvenience.

Best

Syed

Of course collembolans feed on organic matter and Soil microflora. In my view, bio control agent is one which infests / infects harmful organism.  As this particular insect is not specific against harmful one, hence this can not be considered as bio-control agent but as detritivore.

Trials are going on to test the potential of using soil collembolans to control Meloidogyne nematodes.

Yes, they could  be considered biocontrol organisms. Many studies found it

Dear Gloria,

Thanks for your answer. However, it seems that the use of collembolan species as biocontrol organisms is controversial, and not well known. Could you maybe advise me some studies/papers demonstrating their effective use? (I only found a few papers from the 90's about this)

From your point of view, is it mainly lab studies or field studies?

I would tend to agree that Collembola can act as biocontrol agents, but in some circumstances at least some species (eg Protaphorura fimata and Folsomia candida) seem to switch to herbivory, which, although not always damaging to plants, has been blamed for lettuce crop damage in California (see Article Evidence of Protaphorura fimata (Collembola: Poduromorpha: O...