Biocontrol characteristics of the fruit fly pupal parasitoid Trichopria drosophilae (Hymenoptera: Diapriidae) emerging from different hosts

Abstract

Trichopria drosophilae (Hymenoptera: Diapriidae) is an important pupal endoparasitoid of Drosophila melanogaster Meigen (Diptera: Drosophilidae) and some other fruit fly species, such as D. suzukii, a very important invasive and economic pest. Studies of T. drosophilae suggest that this could be a good biological control agent for fruit fly pests. In this research, we compared the parasitic characteristics of T. drosophilae reared in D. melanogaster (TDm) with those reared in D. hydei (TDh). TDh had a larger size than TDm. The number of maximum mature eggs of a female TDh was 133.6 ± 6.9, compared with the significantly lower value of 104.8 ± 11.4 for TDm. Mated TDh female wasp continuously produced female offspring up to 6 days after mating, compared with only 3 days for TDm. In addition, the offspring female ratio of TDh, i.e., 82.32%, was significantly higher than that of TDm, i.e., 61.37%. Under starvation treatment, TDh survived longer than TDm. TDh also survived longer than TDm at high temperatures, such as 37 °C, although they both survived well at low temperatures, such as 18 °C and 4 °C. Old-age TDh females maintained a high parasitism rate and offspring female ratio, while they were declined in old-age TDm. Overall, TDh had an advantage in terms of body size, fecundity, stress resistance ability and the parasitism rate compared with TDm. Therefore, T. drosophilae from D. hydei could improve biocontrol efficacy with enormous economic benefits in the field, especially in the control of many frugivorous Drosophilidae species worldwide.

Life History and Host Preference of Trichopria drosophilae from Southern China, One of the Effective Pupal Parasitoids on the Drosophila Species

“…Combined with our field observations in waxberry orchards in Fujian province, with a predominant T. drosophilae population (unpublished data), T. drosophilae originating from Fujian would be a favorable choice with which to suppress D. suzukii in countries recently invaded by this pest, although further field experiments are needed. Fecundity is the maximum potential reproductive yield of parasitoid females through their lifespan and is a key parasitic feature [36]. The Trichopria drosophilae population used in our experiments showed a similar daily fecundity pattern to that of the Italian and South Korean T. drosophilae populations investigated by Rossi Stacconi [42] and Wang [16].…”

Influence of the Rearing Host on Biological Parameters of Trichopria drosophilae, a Potential Biological Control Agent of Drosophila suzukii

“…Therefore, in this host, which is phylogenetically more distant from D. melanogaster and D. suzukii [44], other factors than size, such as nutritional value, physical quality, or defense, seem to influence host quality. While we did not test whether the larger size of offspring from D. immigrans would translate into higher fitness of the surviving individuals, T. drosophilae that were reared on D. hydei Sturtevant, a host of similar size to D. immigrans , were not only larger, but also lived longer and produced more offspring [45].…”

Effect of temperature on the development time and life‐time fecundity ofTrichopria anastrephaeparasitizingDrosophila suzukii

“…The species attacks and develops in puparia of the common fruit flies, and lays egg into the haemocoel of the host (Chen et al, 2018;Daane et al, 2016). Contrarily to other parasitoids, T. anastrephae is able to overcome the strong immune response exhibited by the SWD larva, and after a full development, a new adult parasitoid emerges from the pupa drilling an hole on its surface (Vieira et al, 2019;Wolf, Boycheva-Woltering, Romeis, & Collatz, 2020).…”