0000000000334349
AUTHOR
Valentina Amodeo
How can two competing egg parasitoid species coexist in a host patch?
Interspecific competitions among parasitoids can affect community structures, and, as a consequence at applicative level, biological control programs. For example, competitions can cause local displacement of inferior species or niche separation. However, the coexistence of species attacking the same host is possible when they adopt different strategies to exploit the resource. In this work we evaluated in field and semi-field conditions intraguild interactions between two egg parasitoids, Trissolcus basalis and Ooencyrtus telenomicida exploring egg masses of Nezara viridula. In semi-field trials, pepper plants were covered with mesh net creating small cages with five plants inside. In each…
Outcomes of intraguild interactions between two egg parasitoids in field and semi-field conditions
Intraguild interactions between two egg parasitoids, Trissolcus basalis (Wollaston) and Ooencyrtus telenomicida (Vassiliev) exploring egg masses of the Southern Green Stink Bug Nezara viridula (L.) were investigated in field and semi-field conditions. Field trials were conducted in tomato fields by using sentinel and naturally laid egg masses in 2010 and 2011. Egg parasitoids monitoring, by sentinel egg masses placed weekly on plants during the tomato growing season and recollected one week later, showed that T. basalis occurs from June to October, whereas O. telenomicida occurs mainly in July and August. In the same fields, collections of naturally laid egg masses display different types o…
Intraguild interactions between two egg parasitoids of a true bug in semi-field and field conditions.
International audience; Research on interspecific competitive interactions among insect parasitoids has often been characterized by laboratory studies in which host insects are exposed to female parasitoids of different species in various sequences and combinations. In the last years, an increasing number of studies have investigated interspecific interactions under field and semi-field conditions although just a few number of works focused on egg parasitoids. In this work, we undertook a two-year study to investigate interspecific interactions between Trissolcus basalis (Wollaston) (Hymenoptera: Platygastridae) and Ooencyrtus telenomicida (Vassiliev) (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae), two egg para…
INTRAGUILD INTERACTIONS BETWEEN EGG PARASITOIDS: FROM LABORATORY TO FIELD INVESTIGATIONS
Field studies on egg parasitoid guilds of herbivore stink bugs, serious pests for a wide number of crops, have shown that Trissolcus spp. and Ooencyrtus spp. can naturally co-occur in the same host, and generally the former parasitize more eggs than the latter. In many countries, to control such pests, biological control programs based on egg parasitoids have been used obtaining inconstantly success. Thereby, understanding the competitive interactions among Trissolcus and Ooencyrtus species may be useful in order to improve biological control of such pests but only few researchers have investigated the effects of competitive interactions among these egg parasitoids. The aim of this thesis w…
Intraguild interactions between egg parasitoids: window of opportunity and fitness costs for a facultative hyperparasitoid.
We investigated intraguild interactions between two egg parasitoids of Nezara viridula (L.) (Heteroptera: Pentatomidae), Ooencyrtus telenomicida (Vassiliev) (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae) and Trissolcus basalis (Wollaston) (Hymenoptera: Platygastridae), as the former has the potential to be a facultative hyperparasitoid of the latter. We assessed the suitability of N. viridula eggs for the development of O. telenomicida as a function of egg age when they were unparasitized, or had been attacked by T. basalis at different times prior to exposure to O. telenomicida females. Ooencyrtus telenomicida can exploit healthy N. viridula host eggs up to 5 days of age, just prior to the emergence of N. viri…