Search results for "Insect invasion"
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Foraging behaviour of a scelionid egg parasitoid exploiting chemical footprints from associated and non-associated host
2017
Chemical footprints deposited by herbivorous pentatomid host bugs hosts when walking on the plant are adsorbed by leaf surfaces and perceived as substrate borne semiochemicals by scelionid egg parasitoids during host selection process. They act as indirect host-related cues, as they are not able to “promise” to parasitoid females the presence of the suitable host stage, but they drive them in the areas where their hosts are potentially present. Once in contact with host chemical footprints, scelionid wasps evidence an innate arrestment response characterized by an intense searching behaviour on host-contaminated areas. Exploiting of these cues allows the parasitoids to optimize their search…
An invasive insect herbivore disrupts plant volatile-mediated tritrophic signalling
2017
Plants respond to insect attack by emission of volatile organic compounds, which recruit natural enemies of the attacking herbivore, constituting an indirect plant defence strategy. In this context, the egg parasitoid Trissolcus basalis is attracted by oviposition-induced plant volatiles emitted by Vicia faba plants as a consequence of feeding and oviposition by the pentatomid host Nezara viridula. However, this local tritrophic web could be affected by the recent invasion by the alien pentatomid bug Halyomorpha halys, an herbivore that shares the same environments as native pentatomid pests. Therefore, we investigated in laboratory conditions the possible impact of H. halys on the plant vo…