Cross-modal effect of natal habitat experience increases receptivity to non-natal habitat cues in generalist parasitic wasps

Abstract

Exposure to natal habitats induces preferences in individual organism for foraging cues that originate from their developmental habitat. However, the natal experience of habitat generalists may play a different role in their habitat selection, since they use a broad range of foraging cues in a non-natal habitat. In this study, the effects of natal habitat experiences on the responses of females of the generalist parasitoid Aphidius gifuensis Ashmead to cues from natal or non-natal habitats were investigated. The landing rates on plant-host complexes (PHCs) and undamaged plants (UDPs) of natal (wheat) and non-natal (broad bean) plant systems in a wind tunnel increased after encounters with host aphids on the wheat-PHCs when the wasps had previously been exposed to wheat-UDPs. However, without the previous exposure to wheat-UDPs, the landing rate on the broad bean-PHCs was not increased. Similar increase found in responses to green paper disc dummies suggested involvement of visual stimuli in the reinforcement. In olfactometer tests, preferences for broad bean-UDPs over broad bean-PHCs were found but wasps with previous exposure to wheat-UDPs and host encounter on wheat-PHCs did not show the preference. These results suggest that the early exposure to natal habitat plants modified later learning and response to visual cues from potential non-natal habitat plants, and olfactory learning might be involved in the modification. This cross-modal effect of early natal experience would compensate for the loss of host-searching efficiency due to uncertain information of potential non-natal habitats.

Host-Seeking Behavior of Aphidius gifuensis (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) Modulated by Chemical Cues Within a Tritrophic Context

“…The biology of A. gifuensis is well understood, and its host-seeking behavior has been recorded on Capsicum annuum L. var. grossum, Brassica oleracea L., Chrysanthemum coronarium L., Solanum lycopersicum L. attacked by M. persicae ( Tan and Liu, 2014 , Wang 2015 ), Triticum aestivum L. attacked by M. avenae ( He 2019 ) and Sitobion akebiae Shinji ( Takemoto 2016 ), Nicotiana tabacum and Brassica napus spp. attacked by M. persicae and L. erysimi ( Yang et al 2009 ), Vicia faba L. attacked by Acyrthosiphon pisum Harris ( Takemoto and Yoshimura 2020 ).…”

En route to resources: Foraging strategies of plant‐associated insects to identify resources in complex dynamic environments

“…Indeed, learning can further alter responses to unconditioned stimuli (Lichtenberg et al, 2020;Sobhy et al, 2019;Takemoto, 2016;Takemoto & Yoshimura, 2020). This may be the result of sensitization towards general resource-associated cues or of stimulus generalization (Bhagavan & Smith, 1997;Ghirlanda & Enquist, 2003;Gumbert, 2000;Internicola et al, 2009).…”