Plants respond to insect oviposition by emission of oviposition-induced plant volatiles (OIPVs) which can recruit egg parasitoids of the attacking herbivore. To date, studies demonstrating egg parasitoid attraction to OIPVs have been carried out in tritrophic systems consisting of one species each of plant, herbivore host, and the associated egg parasitoid. Less attention has been given to plan...

Diglyphus isaea Walker (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) is an important ectoparasitic wasp of many leaf miners. Ability of D. isaea to find hosts placed in artificial mines and for its larvae to pupate when the larva is not in a mine was studied. Artificial mines consisted of slits cut in index card sandwiched between two cover slips. Almost 80% of the neonate larvae of D. isaea located host larvae in...

The wasp genus Nasonia is a genetic model with unique advantages for the study of interspecific differences, including haplodiploidy and interfertile species. However, as a parasitoid, Nasonia is confined within a fly host, thus restricting direct observations and manipulation of development over time. Here, we present the first in vitro cultivation method for this system that decouples Nasonia...

In some animals, transformation to the adult stage occurs in a hidden location, such as a burrow or a host. Males that can locate hidden females sooner, e.g., before they emerge, may have amating advantage, particularly if the females are ready tomate.Whether males locate pre-emergent females and whether pre-emergent females will mate was examined in the parasitoid wasp Spalangia endiusWalker. ...

Oneof the fundamentalquestions inevolutionaryecology seeks tounderstandhownew biodiversity is created and structured into communities. The apple maggot, Rhagoletis pomonella (Walsh) (Diptera: Tephritidae), a model for rapid ecological speciation via host plant shifting for phytophagous insects, and its parasitoid community can offer insight into answering this and other related questions. Speci...

the asiatic citrus psyllid, diaphorina citri kuwayama (hom.: psyllidae), is one of the most important pests on citrus in tropical and subtropical asia. it was detected in iran during the recent years and distributed in some parts of hormozgan and sistan-baluchestan provinces. during the survey carried out to determine natural enemies of this psyllid, a nymphal parasitoid wasp was identified as ...

Insect host-parasitoid systems are often modeled using delay-differential equations, with a fixed development time for the juvenile host and parasitoid stages. We explore here the effects of distributed development on the stability of these systems, for a random parasitism model incorporating an invulnerable host stage, and a negative binomial model that displays generation cycles. A shifted ga...

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.