Innate recognition templates (IRTs) in insects are developed through many years of evolution. Here we investigated olfactory cues mediating oviposition behavior in the oriental fruit fly, Bactrocera dorsalis, and their role in triggering an IRT for oviposition site recognition. Behavioral assays with electrophysiologically active compounds from a preferred host, mango, revealed that one of the ...

The maternal manipulation hypothesis states that ectothermic females modify thermal conditions during embryonic development to benefit their offspring (anticipatory maternal effect). However, the recent theory suggests that the ultimate currency of an adaptive maternal effect is female fitness that can be maximized also by decreasing mean fitness of individual offspring. We evaluated benefits o...

Fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) represent a threat to fruit growing worldwide, mainly the citrus culture, however, biological studies show that fruit flies are not perfectly adapted to this host. This study investigated oviposition of Anastrepha fraterculus (Wiedemann, 1830) and Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann, 1824) and its relation with the pericarp of citrus fruits. We evaluated the relatio...

Understanding oviposition behavior is important to behavioral and vector ecologists because of its potential use in developing vector control strategies for insect-borne infectious diseases. Our study compared the oviposition behaviors of Anopheles gambiae s.s mosquitoes from two different regions of East Africa, Mbita Point, Kenya and Ifakara, Tanzania. The work sought behavioral evidence for ...

The times of oviposition are affected little by the use of a night lighting program. Egg shell weight is not changed by the time of oviposition. Egg weight, shell percentage and it's color vary according to the time of oviposition. The egg characteristics have not been affected by the use of night lighting. Night lighting reduces the percentage of eggs downgraded, in particular reducing by 37 %...

For insects, choosing a favorable oviposition site is a type of parental care, as far as it increases the fitness of its offspring. Niche theory predicts that crickets should show a bell-shaped oviposition response to substrate moisture. However, lab experiments with mole crickets showed a linear oviposition response to substrate moisture. Studies with the house cricket Acheta domesticus also s...

The selection of an appropriate oviposition site is crucial to the maternal fitness of eggraft producing mosquitoes. Females in this group of mosquitoes produce a single egg-raft during their lifetimes. All egg-raft producing mosquitoes are members of the subfamily Culicinae and include the medically important genera Culex and Culiseta. Egg-raft producing mosquitoes use several physical and che...

Insect parasitoids are known to deposit chemical signals on utilized hosts following oviposition. It is believed that these chemical signals alert future conspecifics of an exploited and thus sub-optimal host alleviating potential suffering among brood that would otherwise compete over a limited resource. Diachasma alloeum (Muesebeck) is a braconid wasp that specifically attacks two species of ...

abstract in order to find out a better and cheaper artificial diet for mass rearing of common green lacewing, chrysoperla carnea, an experiment was conducted using completely randomized design (crd) with 4 replications and 5 observations. in this study were used three diets [a mixture of honey, yeast and distilled water (1:1:1), a mixture of honey, yeast plus extract of angomois grain moth eggs...

Chemical screening using Drosophila melanogaster (the fruit fly) is vital in drug discovery, agricultural, and toxicological applications. Oviposition (egg laying) on chemically-doped agar plates is an important read-out metric used to quantitatively assess the biological fitness and behavioral responses of Drosophila. Current oviposition-based chemical screening studies are inaccurate, labor-i...