Anaphes iole Girault is a solitary egg parasitoid which attacks Lygus spp. In a low-parasitoid-density experiment (parasitoid:host ratio 5 1:40) 10.0% of available Lygus hesperus Knight eggs were superparasitized by A. iole. However, in experiments with a high parasitoid density (parasitoid:host ratio 5 1:9), superparasitism of L. hesperus eggs was 33.3, 66.7, and 82.2% after exposure for 2, 6,...

There is an emerging consensus that parasitoids are limited by the number of eggs which they can lay as well as the amount of time they can search for their hosts. Since egg limitation tends to destabilize host-parasitoid dynamics, successful control of insect pests by parasitoids requires additional stabilizing mechanisms such as heterogeneity in the distribution of parasitoid attacks and host...

The introduction of an exotic species may alter food webs within the ecosystem and significantly affect the biodiversity of indigenous species at different trophic levels. It has been postulated that recent introduction of the brown marmorated stinkbug (Halyomorpha halys (Stål)) represents an evolutionary trap for native parasitoids, as they accept H. halys egg masses as a host but produce no v...

Synovigenic insects (i.e., insects emerging with few ripe eggs and maturing more eggs during the course of their lifetime) may suffer from transient egg limitation due to the stochastic nature of encounters with patchy hosts and the low availability of ripe eggs at any given time point. Egg limitation also affects the stability of host-parasitoid models. Thus, quantification of the behavioral d...

In order to succeed in biological control programs, not only is it crucial to understand the number of natural enemies to be released but also on how many sites per area this releasing must be performed. These variables might differ deeply among egg parasitoid species and crops worked. Therefore, these trials were carried out to evaluate the parasitism (%) in eggs of Anticarsia gemmatalis and P...

Spotted Lanternfly, Lycorma delicatula (White) is a recently introduced pest of Tree-of-Heaven, Ailanthus altissima (Mill.) Swingle in North America. Natural enemy surveys for this pest in Pennsylvania in 2016 recovered an encyrtid egg parasitoid from both field collections and laboratory rearing of field-collected L. delicatula egg masses. Both molecular and morphological data confirm that the...

In proovigenic parasitoids such as Leptopilina boulardi, the female emerges with a limited egg load and no further eggs are produced during its adult life. A female thus runs the risk of exhausting this limited supply of eggs before the end of her life. Given that the production of an egg is costly, what is the evolutionarily stable egg load at emergence? This question has attracted a lot of at...

Parasitoid wasps are taxonomically and biologically extremely diverse. A conceptual framework has recently been developed for understanding life-history evolution and diversification in these animals, and it has confirmed that each of two linked life-history traits - the mode of larval development and the temporal pattern of egg maturation - acts as an organiser of life-history. The framework h...

the development times and the survival rates of different stages of habrobracon hebetor say reared on the last instar larvae of galleria mellonella (l.) were compared at ten different constant temperatures (16 - 38 âºc). the development time of immature stages of the parasitoid, h. hebetor, decreased as the temperature increased in the range of 16 to 38 âºc. however, no larvae could survive and...

To evaluate the effect of egg age of Spartocera dentiventris (Berg) on the parasitism by Gryon gallardoi (Brethes), groups of 12 eggs of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 12 days old were exposed to one female of G. gallardoi on a test tube, with the wasp observed for 2h subsequently. Later, the eggs were individualised and incubated (25 +/- 1 degrees C; 12h photoperiod) until adult emergence. To identi...