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Only Females Oviposit: Chemical Discrimination of Adult Stink Bug Sex by the Egg Parasitoid Trissolcus japonicus
Egg parasitoids foraging for suitable hosts scattered in the environment rely mainly on chemical cues. Elucidating the chemical ecology of natural enemies is important in the development of effective and successful strategies for conservation biological control. In this context, the host cuticular hydrocarbons, which are exploited by several species of egg parasitoids as contact kairomones, could be used to retain them by providing information about the presence and the sex of adults of the target species: sex is important because only females of the host species lay the eggs that can be subsequently utilized for parasitoid reproduction. However, the chemical basis of host sex discriminatio…
Contrasting reproductive traits of competing parasitoids facilitate coexistence on a shared host pest in a biological control perspective
BACKGROUND: Interspecific competition in insect parasitoids is an important ecological phenomenon that has relevant implications for biological pest control. To date, interspecific intrinsic (=larval) competition has been intensively studied, while investigations on extrinsic (=adult) competition have often lagged behind. In this study we examined the role played by parasitoid reproductive traits and host clutch size on the outcome of extrinsic competition between Trissolcus basalis (Wollaston) and Ooencyrtus telenomicida (Vassiliev), two egg parasitoids of the pest Nezara viridula (L). Laboratory experiments were conducted by allowing both parasitoid species to exploit an egg mass made of …