BACKGROUND Resource partitioning is facilitated by adaptations along niche dimensions that range from morphology to behaviour. The exploitation of hidden resources may require specially adapted morphological or sensory tools for resource location and utilisation. Differences in tool diversity and complexity can determine not only how many species can utilize these hidden resources but also how ...

The use of irradiated hosts in mass rearing tephritid parasitoids represents an important technical advance in fruit fly augmentative biological control. Irradiation assures that fly emergence is avoided in non-parasitized hosts, while at the same time it has no appreciable effect on parasitoid quality, i.e., fecundity, longevity and flight capability. Parasitoids of fruit fly eggs, larvae and ...

Natural enemies respond to herbivore-induced plant volatiles (HIPVs), but an often overlooked aspect is that there may be genotypic variation in these 'indirect' plant defence traits within plant species. We found that egg deposition by stemborer moths (Chilo partellus) on maize landrace varieties caused emission of HIPVs that attract parasitic wasps. Notably, however, the oviposition-induced r...

We studied host selection and exploitation, two crucial aspects of parasite ecology, in Achrysocharoides parasitoid wasps, which show remarkable host specificity and unusual offspring sex allocation. We estimated a molecular phylogeny of 15 Achrysocharoides species and compared this with host (plant and insect) phylogenies. This tri-trophic phylogenetic comparison provides no evidence for cospe...

BACKGROUND Plant volatiles play an important role in defending plants against insect attacks by attracting their natural enemies. For example, green leaf volatiles (GLVs) and terpenoids emitted from herbivore-damaged plants were found to be important in the host location of parasitic wasps. However, evidence of the functional roles and mechanisms of these semio-chemicals from a system of multip...

The impact of commercially reared house fly parasitoids released into nine dairy calf coverall facilities were evaluated over 3 yr. Individual and equally mixed ratios of the pteromalid parasitoids Muscidifurax raptor Girault and Saunders and M. raptorellus Kogan and Legner were released at a rate of 500 parasitoids per calf per week for 8 wk. Prerelease, release, and postrelease parasitism was...

Reproductive manipulations of hosts by maternally inherited bacterial endosymbionts often result in an increase in the proportion of infected female hosts in the population. When this involves the conversion of incipient males to genetic or functional females, it presents unique difficulties for symbionts invading hosts with sex-specific reproductive behaviours, such as the autoparasitic Encars...

The biodiversity of natural competitors is vital to key ecosystem services and agroecosystems’ benefits society. abundance richness hymenopteran parasitoid communities, subsequently their services, are dependent on the variety habitats in different agroecological landscapes. Here, we monitored fluctuation predatory wasps populations impacts coffee leaf miner infestations under plantation Thus, ...

Abstract Intensive forestry is a threat to biodiversity, and therefore actions are made mitigate this loss. The are, however, designed based on available knowledge about the requirements of species, for saproxylic insects concerns mainly Coleoptera, while diverse but poorly known Hymenoptera has contributed less. In paper we asked whether substrate (divided as parasitoids non-parasitoids) simil...

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...