Effects of Intraspecific Competition and Host-Parasitoid Developmental Timing on Foraging Behaviour of a Parasitoid Wasp.
In a context where hosts are distributed in patches and susceptible to parasitism for a limited time, female parasitoids foraging for hosts might experience intraspecific competition. We investigated the effects of host and parasitoid developmental stage and intraspecific competition among foraging females on host-searching behaviour in the parasitoid waspHyposoter horticola.We found thatH. horticolafemales have a pre-reproductive adult stage during which their eggs are not mature yet and they forage very little for hosts. The wasps foraged for hosts more once they were mature. Behavioural experiments showed that wasps' foraging activity also increased as host eggs aged and became susceptible to parasitism, and as competition among foraging wasps increased.
Metapopulation Research Group, Department of Biosciences, University of Helsinki, PO Box 65, Viikinkaari 1, 00014 Helsinki, Finland.
Christelle
C
Couchoux
Metapopulation Research Group, Department of Biosciences, University of Helsinki, PO Box 65, Viikinkaari 1, 00014 Helsinki, Finland ; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY USA.
Saskya
S
van Nouhuys
Egg load; Hyposoter horticola; Melitaea cinxia; egg parasitoid; ovigeny; resource value