Demonstration of interspecific competition between two sympatric egg parasitoids of Riptortus pedestris (Fabricius) in laboratory condition

Un Taek Lim, Bishwo P. Mainali, Jaegeun Kim

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Ooencyrtus nezarae Ishii (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae) acts as a facultative hyperparasitoid of Gryon japonicum (Ashmead) (Hymenoptera: Platygastridae) sympatric parasitoid of Riptortus pedestris (Fabricius) (Hemiptera: Alydidae). A longer period of host egg exploitation by both parasitoid species would be beneficial for O. nezarae, while G. japonicum tends to be successful when the parasitoids have only a short exploitation period. We demonstrated the interspecific competition by measuring parasitism in nine combinations of host densities (10, 20, and 40 eggs) and exploitation times (1, 3, and 5 days). To reflect the gregarious-solitary dichotomy of the two species, three O. nezarae and one G. japonicum mated females were compared in addition to a one-to-one competition design. We found that O. nezarae was the better competitor when exploitation time was longer than 1. day, irrespective of host density. Total parasitism rate and progeny emergence of O. nezarae were 1.6-2.8 and 4.7-7.3 times higher than for G. japonicum in three-to-one competition design, respectively. Although G. japonicum females were more effective in host finding (as shown by their higher per capita rate of parasitism when exploitation time was short), their progeny suffered high mortality from the larval interspecific competition inside multiparasitized host eggs. These results suggest that gregarious O. nezarae is the superior competitor when host eggs are available for longer period of time while solitary G. japonicum is superior when host resources are available for only a limited time.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)885-891
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of Asia-Pacific Entomology
Volume17
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2014
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • host exploitation
  • multiparasitism
  • facultative hyperparasitoid
  • Encyrtid
  • Platygastrid
  • Multiparasitism
  • Host exploitation
  • Facultative hyperparasitoid

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