Host suppression and stability in a parasitoid-host system: experimental demonstration.
We elucidate the mechanisms causing stability and severe resource suppression in a consumer-resource system. The consumer, the parasitoid Aphytis, rapidly controlled an experimentally induced outbreak of the resource, California red scale, an agricultural pest, and imposed a low, stable pest equilibrium. The results are well predicted by a mechanistic, independently parameterized model. The key mechanisms are widespread in nature: an invulnerable adult stage in the resource population and rapid consumer development. Stability in this biologically nondiverse agricultural system is a property of the local interaction between these two species, not of spatial processes or of the larger ecological community.
Murdoch
William
W
Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA. murdoch@lifesci.ucsb.edu
Briggs
Cheryl J
CJ
Swarbrick
Susan
S
D000375:Aging; D000818:Animals; D002957:Citrus; D017753:Ecosystem; D005260:Female; D006430:Hemiptera / Q000254:growth & development / Q000469:parasitology* / Q000502:physiology*; D006790:Host-Parasite Interactions; D006927:Hymenoptera / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology*; D008136:Longevity; D008297:Male; D008433:Mathematics; D008954:Models, Biological; D011156:Population Density; D011157:Population Dynamics; D012744:Sex Ratio; D013696:Temperature