Life History Evaluation of Ooencyrtus lucidus, a Newly Described Egg Parasitoid of Bagrada hilaris

Abstract

Ooencyrtus lucidus Triapitsyn & Ganjisaffar (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae) was recently recovered from fresh sentinel eggs of Bagrada hilaris (Burmeister) (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) in California. In the present study, life history traits of O. lucidus were studied at 26 ± 0 . 5 ∘ C, 40 ± 10 % RH, and a photoperiod of 14 L: 10 D hours. Results showed that 95.2% of the parasitized eggs yielded successful emergence of adults. The total immature developmental time was 14.27 and 13.95 days for females and males, respectively. The sex ratio of O. lucidus was 0.5 (females/offspring). Mated females laid on average 6.0 eggs per day and 222.7 eggs during their mean ovipositional period of 37.3 days. There was no significant difference in reproduction parameters between mated and non-mated females. The net reproductive rate ( R 0 ) was 103.8 females/female/generation, the intrinsic rate of increase ( r m ) was 0.171 females/female/day, the finite rate of increase ( λ ) was 1.187 population multiplication/day, the mean generation time (T) was 27.1 days, and the doubling time (DT) was 4.0 days. The highest longevity was observed in mated and non-mated females fed with honey, and they lived for 70.8 and 70.1 days, respectively. Providing females with host eggs in addition to honey, reduced their longevity by 24% in mated and 28% in non-mated individuals. Non-mated females and males deprived of honey only lived for 3.5 and 2.5 days after emergence, respectively. Our results indicate that O. lucidus has sufficient life history traits to make it a promising egg parasitoid for the biological control of B. hilaris.

Contrasting reproductive traits of competing parasitoids facilitate coexistence on a shared host pest in a biological control perspective

“…Interestingly, O. telenomicida always performed concurrent host‐feeding, 44 a behavior ‐ absent in scelionids such as T. basalis ‐ which consists of consuming droplets of host ooplasm before laying its offspring inside the host egg. Other Ooencyrtus species are also known to perform host feeding and require a considerable amount of time to successfully parasitize a host 45,46 …”

“…Other Ooencyrtus species are also known to perform host feeding and require a considerable amount of time to successfully parasitize a host. 45,46 In addition to showing differences in host handling time, wasps also diverged in terms of egg load and type of eggs matured: while the egg load of the proovigenic T. basalis was always exceeding the maximum number of host eggs offered to the wasp, this was not the case for the synovigenic O. telenomicida. Furthermore, while T. basalis develops yolk deficient eggs, O. telenomicida matures eggs which are more costly to produce as they are larger and rich in reserves in order to support the embryo development.…”

Direct and Indirect Competitive Interactions between Ooencyrtus nezarae and Paratelenomus saccharalis Parasitizing Megacopta cribraria Egg Patches

“…This differential age range was chosen to coincide with each wasp’s reproductive peaks so that optimum reproduction is represented in these experiments. Within one day of emergence (egression of wasps from host eggs), individual O. nezarae wasp females and males were held together for 96 h to ensure mating occurred quickly after emergence [ 52 ]. Only female P. saccharalis have emerged from field-collected M. cribraria eggs.…”

Host-specific demography of Utetes anastrephae (Hymenoptera, Braconidae), a native parasitoid of Anastrepha spp. fruit flies (Diptera, Tephritidae)

“…Knowledge of the demography of parasitoids, in addition to allowing a better understanding of their biology, allows us to compare the effect of different hosts and make mass rearing more efficient (Bellows et al 1992;Carey and Roach 2020;Ganjisaffar and Perring 2020). For example, the intrinsic rate of natural increase (r) is a population parameter described as the potential growth of a population (Jervis and Copland 1996) and can be used as an indicator of the capacity of a parasitoid species to suppress or regulate the target pest population (Vargas et al 2002;Stark et al 2004).…”