Intraspecific brood parasitism involves laying eggs in the nest of another individual of the same species without subsequently caring for the eggs or hatchlings. Where individuals lay in their own nest as well as parasitically, previous works predicted that parasitism leads to fewer eggs being laid in an individual's own nest, compared with the equivalent situation without parasitism. This is p...

Phyllocnistis citrella Stainton, the citrus-leafminer, is an important pest of citrus worldwide. Knowledge of natural parasitism levels is fundamental to the establishment of tactics of management and control of this species. This work aimed to evaluate the parasitism in two citrus orchards, one of ‘Montenegrina’ (Citrus deliciosa Ten.) and the other of ‘Murcott’ (C. sinensis (L.) Osbeck x C. r...

Obligate brood parasites must find host nests in which to lay their eggs. The search for a suitable host nest is predicted to be more difficult if the host nest is well-concealed by vegetation (nest-concealment hypothesis) and brood parasitism of better concealed nests should be less common than parasitism of less well-concealed nests. We experimentally tested this hypothesis by placing nest-bo...

The burrowing and movement ability of the New Zealand cockle Austrovenus stutchburyi is reduced when infected by echinostome trematodes. Previous experimental evidence from a single site suggests that this parasite-induced behavioural change of a key bivalve can affect the structure of the surrounding benthic community. By using multiple regression analyses on data collected from 17 intertidal ...

Although there is growing evidence that males tend to suffer higher levels of parasitism than females, the implications of this for the population dynamics of the host population are not yet understood. Here we build on an established ‘two-sex’ model and investigate how increased susceptibility to infection in males affects the dynamics, under different mating systems. We investigate the effect...

Aenasius arizonensis Girault, 1915 (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae) is a primary parasitoid species of Phenacoccus solenopsis Tinsley (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae). Some biological characteristics A. at different temperatures were studied to evaluate its potential role against P. in control. Six (15, 20, 25, 30, 35±2, and 25/35±2 °C) determine the most suitable temperature for parasitism. The results sh...

Pollen beetles (Brassicogethes spp.) and stem flea (Psylliodes chrysocephala) are among the main pests of oilseed rape crops in Europe, causing high yield losses. Increasing insecticide resistance environmental concerns have highlighted need for alternatives to chemical control, such as conservation biological control. Conservation control can be enhanced by providing resources beneficial organ...

Secreted proteins coded by parasitism genes expressed in esophageal gland cells mediate infection and parasitism of plants by root-knot nematodes. An essential parasitism gene, designated as 16D10, encodes a conserved root-knot nematode secretory peptide that stimulates root growth and functions as a ligand for a plant transcription factor. Plants were engineered to silence this parasitism gene...

The plastid genomes of some nonphotosynthetic parasitic plants have experienced an extreme reduction in gene content and an increase in evolutionary rate of remaining genes. Nothing is known of the dynamics of these events or whether either is a direct outcome of the loss of photosynthesis. The parasitic Scrophulariaceae and Orobanchaceae, representing a continuum of heterotrophic ability rangi...

Many bacterial populations harbour substantial numbers of hypermutable bacteria, in spite of hypermutation being associated with deleterious mutations. One reason for the persistence of hypermutators is the provision of novel mutations, enabling rapid adaptation to continually changing environments, for example coevolving virulent parasites. However, hypermutation also increases the rate at whi...