abstract parasitic insects face many decisions when foraging for host, some for example frequently have to make decisions with regard to staying in or leaving their current patch. in this study, we investigated how the foraging and oviposition behavior of lysiphlebus fabarum is influenced by (1) a female’s previous experience of encountering aphids host and (2) age of female parasitoids. to tes...

abstract competition is a phenomenon that influences the size, structure and stability of insect communities, particularly on solitary endoparasitoids species. although, competition normally incurs costs, it might be adaptive for the surviving individual. to determine which factors affect the patch use strategy of foragers under competition, the effect of previous experience with hosts already-...

animals that can estimate their desirable habitat quality are better able to accordingly adapt their life behaviors. the life cycles of parasitoids are so closely adapted as to match their hosts life behavior. among the various host-parasitoid interactions, a peculiarity is the seasonal synchrony between host and parasitoid activity. the foraging and oviposition behaviors of lysiphlebus fabarum...

Optimal foraging models predict how an organism allocates its time and energy while foraging for aggregated resources. These models have been successfully applied to organisms such as predators looking for prey, female parasitoids looking for hosts, or herbivorous searching for food. In this study, information use and patch time allocation were investigated using male parasitoids looking for ma...

The wolf spider, Schizocosa ocreata (Hentz), varies foraging patch residence time in the presence of different sensory cues from prey, even without food rewards. This study examines the influence and interaction of hunger state, age and sex on the use of different types of sensory information to determine foraging patch sampling duration. In a series of two-chambered artificial foraging patches...

Foraging models emphasize reward and/or prey capture rates as primary determinants of residence time. The influence of sensory information has rarely been examined experimentally, but may also be important in animal foraging decisions. This study examined the influence of sensory cues without food reward on residence time in wolf spiders, as well as the interaction of visual and vibratory infor...

the black bean aphid, aphis fabae scopoli, is a major pest of broad bean, vicia faba l. and sugar beet, beta vulgaris l., the most abundant parasitoid of a. fabae in agroecosystems is lysiphlebus fabarum (marshall), a multivoltine species with mainly thelytokous reproduction in central europe. since l. fabarum females mimic ants to obtain honeydew directly from aphids it was reasoned that a fem...

Animal responses to habitat boundaries will influence the effects of habitat fragmentation on population dynamics. Although this is an intuitive and often observed animal behavior, the influences of habitat boundaries have rarely been quantified in the field or considered in theoretical models of large scale processes. We quantified movement behavior of the Fender’s blue butterfly (Icaricia ica...

Emerging and re-emerging dengue fever has posed serious problems to public health officials in many tropical and subtropical countries. Continuous traveling in seasonally varying areas makes it more difficult to control the spread of dengue fever. In this work, we consider a two-patch dengue model that can capture the movement of host individuals between and within patches using a residence-tim...