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...

aphid parasitoids (braconidae: aphidiinae) in several localities of kerman province, southeastern iran were studied between 2007 and 2008 and 20 species belonging to eight genera were identified. parasitoids were reared from 25 field-collected aphid species occurring on 31 host plant species. in the present study, 83 parasitoid-aphid-plant associations, their aphid hosts, and the respective hos...

the aphidiine parasitoids (hym., braconidae) attacking the pest aphids on various pome and stone fruit trees in different parts of iranwere studied. a total of 13 species belonging to seven genera of aphid parasitoids were identified in association with 17 aphid species on 10 different species of fruit trees. sixty nine tritrophic associations were detected from the studied area of which 25 ass...

The consequences of plant species loss are rarely assessed in a multi-trophic context and especially effects on life-history traits of organisms at higher trophic levels have remained largely unstudied. We used a grassland biodiversity experiment and measured the effects of two components of plant diversity, plant species richness and the presence of nitrogen-fixing legumes, on several life-his...

Insect communities depend on both their local environment and features of the surrounding habitats. Diverse plant communities may enhance the abundance and species diversity of local natural enemies, which is possible due to a higher abundance and species diversity in complex landscapes. This hypothesis was tested using cereal aphid parasitoids and hyper-parasitoids by comparing 18 spring wheat...

Parasitoid disturbance populations in agroecosystems can be maintained through the provision of habitat refuges with host resources. However, specialized herbivores that feed on different host plants have been shown to form host-specialized races. Parasitoids may subsequently specialize on these herbivore host races and therefore prefer parasitizing insects from the refuge, avoiding foraging on...

Host recognition and use in female parasitoids strongly relies on host fidelity, a plastic behavior which can significantly restrict the host preferences of parasitoids, thus reducing the gene flow between parasitoid populations attacking different insect hosts. However, the effect of migrant males on the genetic differentiation of populations has been frequently ignored in parasitoids, despite...

fauna of the aphidiinae (hymenoptera: braconidae) of iran is reviewed and the data on their host aphid associations are summarized. seventy-eight species belonging to 17 genera of aphidiinae are listed in the associations with 193 aphid species. a total of 491 parasitoid-aphid associations are presented. the distribution of the aphidiinae species in different parts of iran and other countries i...

The molecular mechanisms that allow generalist parasitoids to exploit many, often very distinct hosts are practically unknown. The wasp Aphidius ervi, a generalist koinobiont parasitoid of aphids, was introduced from Europe into Chile in the late 1970s to control agriculturally important aphid species. A recent study showed significant differences in host preference and host acceptance (infecti...