Parasitic wasps and flies (parasitoids) exert high mortality on caterpillars, and previous studies have demonstrated that most primary and secondary defenses do not protect caterpillars against parasitoids. We investigated the efficacy of tertiary defenses (i.e., immune responses) against parasitoids. Using a bead injection technique to measure the immune response and a 15-year database to meas...

A new species of gregarious endoparasitoid, Parapanteles echeriae Gupta, Pereira & Churi, sp. nov., bred from Abisara echeria Stoll (Lepidoptera: Riodinidae) on host plant Embelia sp. (Myrsinaceae), is described and illustrated from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Abisara echeria, commonly known as plum judy, is a small striking butterfly prevalent in Asia. This is the first ever record of a parasi...

Aphids commonly harbour facultative bacterial endosymbionts and may benefit from their presence through increased resistance to parasitoids. This has been demonstrated for Hamiltonella defensa and Serratia symbiotica, while a third common endosymbiont, Regiella insecticola, did not provide such protection. However, this symbiont was recently detected in a highly resistant clone of the peach-pot...

Among the Chalcidoids, hymenopteran parasitic wasps that have diversified lifestyles, a partial mitochondrial genome has been reported only from Nasonia. This genome had many unusual features, especially a dramatic reorganization and a high rate of evolution. Comparisons based on more mitochondrial genomic data from the same superfamily were required to reveal weather these unusual features are...

Major developmental innovations have been associated with adaptive radiations that have allowed particular groups of organisms to occupy empty ecospace. Well-known developmental novelties associated with the conquest of new habitats include the evolution of the tetrapode limb, allowing the radiation of vertebrates into a terrestrial habitat, and formation of insect wings that permitted their di...

Thomas et al. (2005) conclude their interesting review of parasitic manipulation in an optimistic tone and state that “the study of manipulation is far from being weak”. This serves as a timely antidote to Poulin’s sobering message of a Kuhnian type weakening paradigm (Poulin, 2000). This is not to say that the authors find fault with Poulin’s analyses, but rather they find reasons for optimism...

The life cycle, within-field distribution, crop damage and impact of natural enemies of the potato tuber moth, Phthorimaea operculella (Zeller) were investigated in two potato cropping systems. The two systems differed in soil type (sandy vs. loess) which in turn affected the choice of cultivars, irrigation programme, insecticide application method (ground vs. aerial), and planting and harvest ...

The life history of Chalcoela iphitalis-a common brood parasite of social wasps-has been described in previous literature, but critical information regarding oviposition behavior and possible differential host parasitism remain cryptic. Here we report on infestation levels of this moth in field populations of paper wasps in Polistes and Mischocyttarus, as well as the oviposition behavior of the...

0003-3472 2010 The Association for the Study of A doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2010.11.002 Animals formmemory types that differ in duration and stability. The initial anaesthesia-sensitive memory (ASM) can be replaced by anaesthesia-resistant memory (ARM), and/or by protein synthesis-dependent, long-term memory (LTM). We previously showed that two closely related parasitic wasp species differ in learn...