There is growing interest in biological control as a sustainable and environmentally friendly way to control pest insects. Aphids are among the most detrimental agricultural pests worldwide, and parasitoid wasps are frequently employed for their control. The use of asexual parasitoids may improve the effectiveness of biological control because only females kill hosts and because asexual populat...

Parasitoids are important insects that commonly released into the environment to reduce population sizes of pest species. The lifetime reproductive success parasitoids mainly depends on host availability and mature eggs. Consequently, it is predicted female wasps must balance risk egg or (time) limitation with maximized fecundity. Typically, synovigenic females, which continue eggs throughout t...

Our current, still limited, understanding of the comparative biology and evolution of polydnaviruses (PDVs) is reviewed, especially in the context of the possible origins of these parasitoid viruses and of their coevolution with carrier wasps. A hypothetical scenario of evolution of PDVs from ascovirus (or ascovirus-like) ancestors is presented, with examples of apparent extant transitional for...

A sample of 346 specimens of Diplazontinae parasitoid wasps from the Kuril islands was studied. Twenty-six species are reported, Tymmophorus gelidus Dasch for the first time for the Eastern Palaearctic. Two new species are described, Diplazon kurilensis sp. n. and Homotropus formosus sp. n. Diplazon urupensis Uchida is removed from synonymy (stat. rev.), and Promethes persulcatus Nakanishi is s...

We report three novel small RNA viruses uncovered from cDNA libraries from parasitoid wasps in the genus Nasonia. The genome of this kind of virus is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA with a 3' poly(A), which facilitates cloning from cDNAs. Two of the viruses, NvitV-1 and NvitV-2, possess a RNA-dependent RNA polymerase that associates them with the family Iflaviridae of the order Picornavira...

Insect hosts can survive infection by parasitoids using the encapsulation phenomenon. In Drosophila melanogaster the abilities to encapsulate the wasp species Leptopilina boulardi and Asobara tabida each involve one major gene. Both resistance genes have been precisely localized on the second chromosome, 35 centimorgans apart. This result clearly demonstrates the involvement of at least two sep...

Five new species belonging to the poorly known Neotropical doryctine parasitoid wasps genera Heerz Marsh (Heerz ecmahlasp. n. and Heerz macrophthalmasp. n.), Lissopsius Marsh (Lissopsius pacificussp. n. and Lissopsius jalisciensissp. n.) and Ondigus Braet, Barbalho & van Achterberg (Ondigus cuixmalensissp. n.) are described from the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere reserve in Jalisco, Mexico. Keys to...

The insect order of Hymenoptera (ants, bees, sawflies, and wasps) consists almost entirely of haplodiploid species. Under haplodiploidy, males develop from unfertilized eggs and are haploid, whereas females develop from fertilized eggs and are diploid. Although diploid males commonly occur, haploid females have never been reported. In analyzing the phenomenon of gynandromorphism in the parasito...

In order to evaluate the efficiency of biocontrol agents of corn stem borer ,Ostrinia nubilalis, experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block by five treatments and four replication, including, Indoxacarb (Avant)®, Trichogrammawasps, Bacillus thuringiensis var: kurstaki, integration of Trichogramma sp. and Bt., and cont...

In order to evaluate the efficiency of biocontrol agents of corn stem borer ,Ostrinia nubilalis, experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block by five treatments and four replication, including, Indoxacarb (Avant)®, Trichogrammawasps, Bacillus thuringiensis var: kurstaki, integration of Trichogramma sp. and Bt., and cont...