It has been hypothesized that the success of a biological control introduction is, in part, dependent on the ability of the control agent to become established in its new environment or to its new population of hosts through local adaptation. Despite this, few studies have investigated the influence of the recent coevolutionary history of pest species and natural enemies on the efficacy of biol...

ladybird hippodamia variegata (goeze) (coleoptera: coccinellidae) has been reported from many parts of iran, has an important factor on equilibrium and natural regulation of acyrthosiphon pisum (harris) (hem.: aphididae) population in alfalfa. determining the population seasonal change of h. variegata and its parasitism rate by the most important parasitoid species was the aim of this study. th...

the specimens of the mealybug peliococcus kimmericus (kiritshenko) were collected on lactuca serriola l. from different parts of the fars province, iran. four parasitoid wasps, anagyrus orbitalis (ruschka), leptomastix histrio mayr, cheiloneurus kollari (mayr) and c. paralia (walker) (hym.: encyrtidae), were reared from this mealybug and the identifications confirmed by dr zhihong xu. the relat...

Cnidarians are the most primitive animals to possess a nervous system. This phylum is composed of the classes Scyphozoa (jellyfish), Cubozoa (box jellyfish), and Hydrozoa (e.g., Hydra, Hydractinia), which make up the subphylum Medusozoa, as well as the class Anthozoa (sea anemones and corals). Neuropeptides have an early evolutionary origin and are already abundant in cnidarians. For example, f...

Aphids cause considerable damage to numerous crops all over the world and insecticides are main means of controlling them, despite their detrimental impacts on human environmental health. This study assessed effectiveness parasitoid Aphidius colemani Viereck (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), a mixture predatory ladybird beetles, Hippodamia variegata Goeze, Chilocorus calvus Chiccl, Cheilomenes propinq...

Five species of Ooctonus Haliday (Hymenoptera, Mymaridae) from Heilongjiang Province, China, are reviewed. One species, Ooctonushuberi sp. n., is described as new, and four species, Ooctonusorientalis Doutt, Ooctonussaturn Triapitsyn, Ooctonussublaevis Förster and Ooctonusvulgatus Haliday are reported as new to China. A key to the females of the 10 described Chinese species is given. All the sp...

Three new species of Meteorus parasitoids of Arctiinae are described: Meteorus anuae n. sp., M. juliae n. sp. and M. mirandae n. sp. The first biological record for M. cecavorum Aguirre & Shaw as well as its cocoon description is reported. A comprehensive key for the Neotropical Meteorus attacking Arctiinae is provided. A total of nine Meteorus species have been reared from Arctiinae in the Neo...

A comprehensive key for 75 species of Meteorus distributed across 15 Neotropical countries is presented. Eleven new species from Bolivia, Costa Rica and Ecuador are described: Meteorusalbistigma, Meteoruscarolae, Meteoruseurysaccavorus, Meteorusfallacavus, Meteorusflavistigma, Meteorushaimowitzi, Meteorusmagnoculus, Meteorusmartinezi, Meteorusmicrocavus, Meteorusnoctuivorus and Meteorusorion. E...

Despite the fact that insect learning capacity has been broadly demonstrated, the role that this process plays during mate searching has been scarcely explored. We studied whether the sexual behaviour of a male parasitic wasp can be conditioned to the odours from two alternative host plant complexes (HPCs) present during its first copulation. The experimental subjects were newly emerged males o...