Bracoviruses associate symbiotically with thousands of parasitoid wasp species in the family Braconidae, working as virulence gene vectors, and allowing the development of wasp larvae within hosts. These viruses are composed of multiple DNA circles that are packaged into infective particles, and injected together with wasp's eggs during parasitization. One of the viral segments of Cotesia vesta...

Soybean aphid is an economic pest of soybean in North America. Currently, management of soybean aphid is achieved through the use of foliar- and seed-applied insecticides. However, natural enemies play an important role in regulating soybean aphid populations, and may be adversely affected by insecticides. The effects of imidacloprid and thiamethoxam seed treatments on the soybean aphid parasit...

Conservation biological control involving the polyphagous aphid parasitoid, Aphidius colemani Viereck, may include provisioning resources from a variety of plant sources. The fitness of adult A. colemani was enhanced with the provision of food resources such as floral nectar from a range of both native and introduced plant species and aphid honeydew under laboratory conditions. However, enhance...

Little is known of the fate of viruses involved in long-term obligatory associations with eukaryotes. For example, many species of parasitoid wasps have symbiotic viruses to manipulate host defenses and to allow development of parasitoid larvae. The complete nucleotide sequence of the DNA enclosed in the virus particles injected by a parasitoid wasp revealed a complex organization, resembling a...

gregopimpla malacosomae (seyrig) was collected and identified as a parasitoid of malacosoma castrense (l.), during the research on the bioecology of the latter species in shohada (gasemloo) valley, urmia. this ichneumonid wasp is a new record for iran.

Parasitoids are mostly insects that develop at the expense of other arthropods, which will die as a result of the interaction. Their reproductive success thus totally depends on their ability to successfully infest their host whose reproductive success relies on its own ability to avoid or overcome parasitism. Such intense selective pressures have resulted in extremely diverse adaptations in pa...

The detection of harmful stimuli - nociception - has been suggested to rely on evolutionarily conserved neuronal mechanisms. A recent study has shown how the activity of nociceptive neurons in Drosophila larvae triggers a defense mechanism against a parasitoid wasp.

The parasitoid wasp Pachycrepoideus vindemmiae (Rondani) is a common pupal parasitoid of many fly pests that is distributed worldwide. This organism can be used for biological control in orchards or livestock farms. Identifying polymorphic microsatellite loci would be useful for analyzing the population genetic structure of the parasitoid. In the current study, based on a modified biotin-captur...

Multipartite nucleic acid-containing virus-like particles, known as polydnaviruses, are special structures produced by female parasitoid wasps to deliver wasp components into the body of their host at oviposition. The particles confer protection for the developing parasitoid by passive and active means. Although several genes expressed from the circular DNA of these particles have been identifi...