The presence of nonprey or nonhosts is known to reduce the strength of consumer- resource interactions by increasing the consumer's effort needed to find its resource. These interference effects can have a stabilizing effect on consumer-resource dynamics, but have also been invoked to explain parasitoid extinctions. To understand how nonhosts affect parasitoids, we manipulated the density and d...

During parasitoid development, the immature parasitoid is confined to the host species. As a result, any potential to modify the physiology or behaviour of the host could play an important role in parasitoid fitness. The potential for host manipulation by the aphid parasitoid Aphidius avenae to increase cold thermotolerance was investigated using the aphid host species Metopolophium dirhodum an...

Host insects are either susceptible or resistant to parasitoids, where resistant hosts express immunity factors and compatible parasitoids express virulence factors that may reveal the manipulation of susceptible hosts. Using proteomics we compared responses of the same host, the aphid Macrosiphum euphorbiae, challenged by a well-adapted parasitoid Aphidius nigripes or by a less adapted relativ...

Over the period 2006–2010, 40 species of primary parasitoids belonging to eleven genera were found and reared from 50 species of host aphids, from a total of 106 host plants collected from 62 localities all around Slovenia. Over 230 tritrophic associations have been reviewed, including four associations which are reported for the first time; Ephedrus plagiator/ Staticobium limonii/ Limonium ang...