Variation in mean food availability, and in the variance around the mean, affects the growth rate during development. Previous theoretical work on the influence of environmental quality or growth rates on the phenotypic traits age and size at maturation assumed that there is no variation in growth rate or food availability within a generation. We develop a stochastic dynamic programming (SDP) m...

The generalist entomopathogenic fungus, Metarhizium brunneum, has proved to have great potential as a versatile biological pest control agent. The gall midge Aphidoletes aphidimyza is a specialist predator that occurs naturally in Europe and has been successfully used for aphid suppression. However, the interaction between these two biological control organisms and how it may affect the biologi...

The ability of Steinernema feltiae or Heterorhabditis bacteriophora infective juveniles (IJ), when applied to the soil surface, to infect a Galleria mellonella larva at the base of a soil-filled cup (276 cm(3)) was evaluated in the presence and absence of 100 larvae of a non-target insect, the aphid midge Aphidoletes aphidimyza, near the soil surface. In all four trials with either S. feltiae o...

Aphids (Hemiptera: Aphididae) are a major economic problem in numerous crops, including pepper, melon, and potato. Larvae of the American hoverfly, Eupeodes americanus (Wiedemann) (Diptera: Syrphidae), common aphidophagous natural enemies agrosystems North America. The objective present study was to characterize development cycle E. order evaluate its potential as biocontrol agent. cycle, survi...

intraguild predation (igp) occurs when one predator species consumes another predator species with whom it also competes for shared prey. we studied igp between different stages of hippodamia variegata and aphidoletes aphidimyza in absence and presence of extraguild prey (aphis gossypii) in petri dish arena. in the absence of extraguild prey all stages of h. variegata (larva1, 2, 3, 4, female a...

The aphidophagous midge Aphidoletes aphidimyza (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) is used in biological control programs against aphids in many crops. Short-term trials with this natural enemy demonstrated that that females prefer to oviposit among aphids colonizing the new growth of plants, leading to differential attack rates for aphid species that differ in their within-plant distributions. Thus, we h...