A new species of parasitoid wasp, Meteorus rugonasus Shaw and Jones (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), is described from the Yanayacu Biological Station, Napo Province, Ecuador. The new species is diagnosed and compared to other species in the genus. It was reared from larvae of Pteronymia zerlina (Hewitson, 1855) (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae, Ithomiinae) found feeding on leaves of Solanum (Solanaceae). T...

abstract in a laboratory study the effect of three insecticides (pirimicarb, pymetrozine and spinosad) was evaluated on aphelinus mali a parasitoid of woolly apple aphid. to investigate the contact effect, adults were caged for 16 hours in petri-dishes containing apple leaves sprayed with each insecticide. to determine the oral toxicity in the same period of time, other petri-dishes containing ...

Foraging parasitoids rely on infochemicals, derived from the habitat, host plant and/or insect itself. Here, we studied olive fruit fly Bactrocera oleae (Rossi) (Diptera: Tephritidae), a major pest in agroecosystem and its larval parasitoid, Psyttalia concolor (Szépligeti) (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), well-established abundant wasp Crete. To improve parasitoid’s efficiency as biological control a...

Marine microbial interactions involving eukaryotes and their parasites play an important role in shaping the structure of phytoplankton communities. These interactions may alter population densities of the main host, which in turn may have consequences for the other concurrent species. The effect generalist parasitoids exert on a community is strongly dependent on the degree of host specificity...

Female Nasonia vitripennis lay fewer eggs and increase the proportion of male offspring when ovipositing in previously parasitized hosts compared to unparasitized hosts. This study examines the location and nature of the cues that females use in these clutch size and sex ratio decisions. Neither the sex ratio nor the clutch size response relies on chemical cues on, or a hole drilled in, the out...

A critical stage in the success of a parasitoid is the ability to locate a host within its habitat. It is hypothesized that a series of olfactory cues may be involved in altering the parasitoid's movement patterns at this stage of foraging. This paper focuses specifically on host habitat location and host location and the olfactory stimuli necessary to mediate the transition between these stage...

Mating systems are shaped by a species' ecology, which sets the stage for sexual selection. Males of the gregarious parasitoid wasp Nasonia vitripennis compete to mate virgin females at the natal site, before females disperse. Males could increase their fitness by being larger and monopolizing female emergence sites or by emerging earlier pre-empting access to females. We consider sexual select...

We used mitochondrial DNA sequence data and 12 microsatellite loci to examine the genetic structure of Cotesia melitaearum (Wilkinson) (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), a parasitoid wasp reared from two common butterßy species, Melitaea cinxia (L.) (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) and Euphydryas aurinia (Rottemburg) (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae), acrossmany localities in Europe and Asia, aswell as from fourmor...