Insect communities depend on both their local environment and features of the surrounding habitats. Diverse plant communities may enhance the abundance and species diversity of local natural enemies, which is possible due to a higher abundance and species diversity in complex landscapes. This hypothesis was tested using cereal aphid parasitoids and hyper-parasitoids by comparing 18 spring wheat...

Habitat diversification can potentially benefit natural enemies by providing alternative prey, a suitable microclimate, or nectar and pollen (Landis et al., 2000). Laboratory and field cage studies demonstrate that parasitoids with access to sugar have greater longevity, fecundity, and more femalebiased sex ratios than starved parasitoids (Idris and Grafius, 1995; Dyer and Landis, 1996; Berndt ...

Many parasitoid species use olfactory cues to locate their hosts. In tritrophic systems, parasitoids of herbivores can exploit the chemical blends emitted by plants in reaction to herbivore-induced damage, known as herbivore-induced plant volatiles (HIPVs). In this study, we explored the specificity and innateness of parasitoid responses to HIPVs using a meta-analysis of data from the literatur...

Parasitoids are important organisms in the regulation of insect herbivores in natural, urban, and agricultural ecosystems. The impact of pollutants acting on parasitoids has not been extensively reviewed. This prompted us to propose a falsifiable null hypothesis (pollutants have no effects on parasitoids) and two alternative hypotheses (pollution negatively or positively affects parasitoids) to...

Parasitoids are insects (mainly Hymenoptera and Diptera) whose larvae develop by feeding on the bodies of other arthropods (mainly immature insects) and the adults are free living. They are of immense importance in practically all terrestrial ecosystems because of their impact on the population levels of their hosts. In contrast to the considerable attention paid to European butterflies their p...

Parasitoids are an important mortality factor for insects. Susceptibility to parasitoids should thus be under strong negative selection. Nevertheless, ample genetic variation for susceptibility to parasitoids is commonly observed in natural populations, suggesting that trade-offs may constrain the evolution of reduced susceptibility. This can be studied by assessing genetic variation for suscep...