Parasitoids - Science topic

Dear Jinan, thanks for your answer, that is good to know! Which species are those? Just in general whatever is attacking ornamental plants? Are there some dominant species? Greetings, Lukas

Capturing is one thing, but the real work is in identifying the large amount of collected arthropods. If you have trained staff, there's no problem. When I started this work (in the eighties) I had to train assistants myself. This was in Burkina Faso. At least one of them was later hired by the WHO for their research on insect vectors. Many overlook this issue when starting, and end up with poor data.

Dear Thomas: I have used both MT and Sart. balances, and MT is so accurate, however, sartoruis is so good, and you can use it for these small and minute masses. You need a well levelled plane or bench and a quite room to get excellent results. Regards.

Hi Eduardo Engel,

It is mainly studies in microbiology that have applied these methods, and I know of no study that has done this on host-parasitoid or prey-predator networks. I think the general principle is the same though.

You will probably have to think about applying a time-lag in your models, to take into account the development time of parasitoids in aphids. I enclose 4 publications that have studied these questions, with models that are relatively easy to implement in R.

Of course the main issue would be that you cannot directly link parasitoid abundances to the biological control service provided (correlation is not causation).

We can continue to discuss by mail if you want, and see what we can do together on this subject if you are interested.

Kevin

Hi Murilo Fonseca Ribeiro, try reaching out to Erinn P. Fagan-Jeffries at Uni of South Australia - she works on Microgastrinae. Might be worth a shot.

Best, Andy

Pyrethrum and Nicotine are "natural" plant extracts (botanical insecticides) that can kill all insects so "Botanical Insecticides only kill target insect pests, not kill the beneficial insects" is NOT true in my experience.

Parasitoids should not be used in grains meant for human consumption, as it will only add to more contamination.

Dear Axel,

I am in agreement with your statements. In such cases of Biological Studies of insect specially the behavior of parasitoids, researchers really need manipulated controlled situation to go straight ahead in their research.

I just searched about your discussed issue in Google scholar by entering keywords like tamarixia radiata+diaphorina citrus and came across many interesting publications which I sent you two of them and you see in the methodology that all such researches have been done in a controlled condition. Good luck.

Best, Elaheh

Check https://journals.lww.com/pidj/Documents/CR.Biosafety_in_Research.Aug10.pdf

Dear colleague,

Unfortunately I do not know.

All best wishes for your continuing successes,

Prof. Otar Shainidze

Thank you for the information, Melodie!

Hi Lana, recently, I have performed some experiments for Trichogramma Chilonis parasitism on Potato tuber moth (PTM) eggs. I pinned PTM eggs cards (glued by females on filter paper) at the apical portion of the plant and checked T. chilonis preference with two different treatments. I realized that the color of cards does not affect the olfactory choice of parasitoids.

Plant volatiles play a significant role in host finding for parasitoids. Under biotic or abiotic stress, plants released info-chemicals that could be attractive to natural enemies and repellent to herbivores.

Cerretti, Tschorsnig, Lopresti, Di Giovanni. (2012). MOSCHweb — a matrix-based interactive key to the genera of the Palaearctic Tachinidae (Insecta, Diptera). ZooKeys 205: 5–18. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.205.3409. Interactive key to the genera of the Palaearctic Tachinidae (Insecta: Diptera).

Tschorsnig, H. -P. , Herting, B., Raper, C. M., Rayner, R. 2002. The Tachinids (Diptera: Tachinidae) of Central Europe: Identification Keys for the Species and Data on Distribution. English Translation by Chris Rapper. If you write Chris Rapper he can send you the key. There you can find the known hosts of most of the species.

I will Insha-Allah let me give some time.

I am in last stage of my ph. D. as i am done with it i will work on it.

You can go through with this article, it may helps.

Zero tolerance to any insect in stored grain.It is hard to change people‘s ideas

Muito obrigado, Eu tendre en cuenta

Let me see the data, may be I can help:

Please see this article about Trichogramma dendrolimi where they mention where to get them.

Jai, no, this is not a Trichogramma, they are egg parasitoids and the wing venation is simple with filaments on the the wing margin. Cotesia (Braconidae) are endoparasitoids of lepidoptera larvae. I have worked with Cotesia so there is no doubt that belongs to this genus.

It's been done, though only a very few times. See e.g.

I'm not an expert in the molecular side, but e.g. Helena or some of the other authors could perhaps give some ideas.

Natural enemies: Parasitoids, predators, pathogens, micro-organism and other diverse group i.e. mammals, birds, amphibians, fish, snail and nematods. 15% natural enemies so far identified.

Braconids: Large family in Super family Ichneumonoidea used in applied biological control and natural control.

thanks for sharing the information !

Best,

Joe

Use life tables to keep track of your life cycles. A life table is a kind of bookkeeping system that entomologists often use to keep track of stage-specific mortality in the populations they study.  It is an especially useful approach in entomology where developmental stages are discrete and mortality rates may vary widely from one life stage to another.  From a pest management standpoint, it is very useful to know when (and why) a pest population suffers high mortality -- this is usually the time when it is most vulnerable.  By managing the natural environment to maximize this vulnerability, pest populations can often be suppressed without any other control methods.

To create a life table, you need to follows the life history of many individuals in a population, keeping track of how many offspring each female produces, when each one dies, and what caused its death.  After amassing data from different populations, different months, and different environmental conditions, the ecologist summarizes this data by calculating average mortality within each developmental stage.

For example, in a hypothetical insect population, an average female will lay 200 eggs before she dies.  Start with a cohort of 200 eggs. Half of these eggs (on average) will be consumed by predators, 90% of the larvae will die from parasitization, and three-fifths of the pupae will freeze to death in the winter.  (These numbers are averages, but they are based on a large database of observations.)

These could be the few sources of info...

Dear Louise,

Try the Noldus website. We have used their equipment for tracking mosquitoes.

Best,

Guy

Fopius carpomyiae (Silvestri) (Braconidae: Opiinae) is primarily an egg-pupal, larvae parasitoid of Ber (Konar) fruit fly, Carpomya vesuviana

(16) (PDF) Study on parasitism of Carpomya vesuviana Costa (Diptera: Tephritidae) by Fopius carpomyiae (Silvestri) (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) in Bushehr Province.. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325157598_Study_on_parasitism_of_Carpomya_vesuviana_Costa_Diptera_Tephritidae_by_Fopius_carpomyiae_Silvestri_Hymenoptera_Braconidae_in_Bushehr_Province [accessed Nov 30 2018].

Hello Mahmud:

There is a paper by Nazarpour et. al. 2013 about the Efficacy of Augmentative Release of Habrobracon hebetor Say (Hym. Braconidae) for Biological Control of Helicoverpa armygera (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) in tomatoe fields in Iran.

Habrobracon hebetor is a valuable biocontrol agent of the larval stage of many important agricultural pests such as the Noctuid and Pyralid moths, including H. armigera. Efficacies of augmentative release of H. hebetor for biological control of H. armygera and the larva parasitism of the pest by H. hebetor in tomato fields were evaluated during the cropping season 2011/2012 in Masjed Soleiman, Khuzestan province, Iran. Numbers of parasite larvae were recorded 1, 4, 9 and 14 days after the release (DAR). In this study, the adult wasps were released at the rate of around 50 adults/m2 the field parasitism percentage was 34.85 and contributed 73% to total larval mortality. Results showed that maximum parasitism was occurred 4 DAR and it declines in 9 and 13 DAR. According the research, H. hebetor could parasites H. armigera till 60% under field condition. It seems that H. hebetor alone is no efficacy potency to control H. armigera and must be integrated with a suitable and bio-pesticide.

Regards,

Luis Miguel

If you ran gel with your DNA extraction samples, the bands you've seen are genomic DNA. PCR samples should show bands for the target gene only, so apparently the PCR didn't work. Even though these are universal primers, they might work at different PCR settings for different species. You may try to change annealing temperature/DNA or primer concentration.. Hope that might help!

Typically the method involves developing multiple dose-response curves. This process is easier if the residue is applied uniformly because you have then eliminated variability due to toxicant distribution. This is great so long as all of the resistance in the field is due to biochemical mechanisms. This approach minimizes any behavioral sources of resistance.

Selection pressure is up to you, but a few individuals need to survive and be sufficiently healthy to reproduce. You can use the LD10, or LD50 dose as the selection tool.

Match exposure in the lab to exposure in the field. A systemic insecticide might be best tested mixed with diet, while a contact insecticide test might be more relevant as a thin film.

Be aware that "uniform" to you may not be uniform to the insect. The aphid interacts with its environment often at a sub-millimeter scale to distinguish one cell in a leaf from another.

Sometimes these assays are conducted by placing a droplet of pesticide on the insect cuticle using a microapplicator.

Hi Pier,

I did it this way, and works.

Hello again!

Did anyone have luck with obtaining galls of Aceria fraxinivora?

Best regards,

Simon

I do use my phone too in the microscope lenses, or try to use a microscope with built in camera. Usually, I will edit then my photos using Affinity Photos for good results. The H-K photos are from a microscope with built in camera (I used Leica stereomicroscope).

Have marked parasitoids with Rubidium via feeding but you can probably spray them too. Search "rubidium"

Dear Dr.

you can see this paper

Dirhinus giffardii (Hymenoptera: Chalcididae), parasitoid affecting Black Soldier Fly production systems in West Africa

DOI: 10.4081/entomologia.2015.284

Best regards

Hi Ginevra,

I know that in commercial cultivation there are some diseases causing really important problems. Check this article and see if it can be useful for you (I think that the ice-ice disease is caused by a virus, but maybe you can find something interesting).

Different insects can be attracted to light and also ultraviolet (UV) energy, but the specific wavelength regions to which they are attracted (or repelled in some cases) will differ species-by-species. More often than not, however, short-visible and near-UV wavelengths (<500 nm) probably tend to be more attractive to more species. One possible starting place is the 8th or 9th editions (1993 or 2000) of the Illuminating Engineering Society's Lighting Handbook, in a chapter entitled "Lighting and Photobiology," which will contain a number of literature citations you can follow up. There is a more recent edition to the IES Lighting Handbook but I don't recall if the information on insect attraction light made it into the 10th edition (2011).

I don't have

You are welcome

Houda

Thank you indeed.

Gabor: that makes them herbivores! I agree with Timothy that my suggestion was too simplistic. Having said that I don't think parasitoidism is involved at all. Paralysing another insect cannot be compared to laying an egg on or in the victim after which the hatched and larvae feed on the victim internally and finally killing it.

Also from my experieince, hundrerds from Myzus persicae infested the sweet pepper, on which I reared huge number of M. persicae and these were protected from natural enemies either parasitoieds or preditors. I think it is gregariuos .

..

Hi,

I think that you have specimens belong to Telenomus (Scelionidae, Platygastroidea), possibly T. polymorphus Costa Lima, 1943, but I  am not sure because is difficult to identify the species level using only the pictures.

Best regards,  Ovidiu 

You most welcome

Houda

HI Jenneke, do you still have the samples? There are a few Phytomyptera species reported for South America, Rasmussen et al. (2001) reports Phytomyptera sp. as parasitoid of Eurysacca in Peru. It probably is an undescribed species.

Best.

Juan Manuel

Confirmed by Helmuth Aguirre Fernandez! This is Meteorus eurysaccovorus.

Dear Ihsan Nurkomar

Try to contact the researchers in the article mentioned, I'm sure they will help you, good luck

Pls. find the attached files

page 216 in: Q. Ashton Acton, 2012. Issues in Ecological Research and Application Edition ScholarlyEditions,Pp.2009  ISBN1464964092, 9781464964091

Hoping this will be helpful

Regards

Prof. Houda Kawas

With photos is difficult to ID at species and genus level, however  try to see if your specimen follow this characteristics of Gelis.

Characteristics of Gelis include: 1. Body size (mm) (excluding antennae and ovipositor):<10mm; 2. Position of spiracle on Tergite 1 (T1 of metasoma):clearly behind the centre; 3. Shape of aerolet in forewing:other; 4. Colour of face:only black; 5. Metasoma compressed:dorsal-ventrally; 6. Size of Ocelli:small; 7. Length of antennae:shorter than body; 8. Length of ovipositor:not longer than body; 9. Wings:present; 10. Colour of wings:mostly clear but with dark patches/spots; 11. Sternaulus (on mesopleuron):short; less than 0.5x length mesopleuron; 11. Sternaulus (on mesopleuron):long; more than 0.5x length mesopleuron; 12. Shape of face in lateral view:flat or only weakly bulging; 13. Sternite on T1(viewed laterally):sternite not extending past spiracle; 14. Shape of T1(viewed laterally):evenly curved; 15. Number of teeth in mandibles:1 or 2; 16. Patterns on metasoma:same colour throughout; 17. Length of T1 vs T2:subequal in length; 18. Sculpture on mesoscutum:finely pitted, many hairs; 19. Width of T1 (viewed dorsally):gradually widening from anterior to posterior; 20. Glymma on T1:absent; 21. Sculpture on metasoma:smooth with a semi-glossy or satin appearance at least on T2; 22. Propodeum length:Propodeum very short (not reaching beyond coxal insertion).

Dear Kevin Tougeron

The parasitoids have a very specific behavior towards their hosts so it is better to examine the behavior of the parasitoid towards the different stages of pea aphids and then you can detect if it can develop or not on the male pea aphid. Best Regards.

Aly Younes

Thank you very much Dear Panis for your valuable suggestions and guidance, its really appreciated. I will definitely contact him in regard to identify these parasitioids.

Thank You very much for Your answers, it would be helpful for me..

Best regards :)

There is no hard and fast rule. However factors associated with the control programmes (invasive region, native region, plant growth form, target longevity, control agent guild, taxonomy and study duration) have varying patterns in control success. On average, biocontrol agents significantly reduced plant size (28 ± 4%), plant mass (37 ± 4%), flower and seed production (35 ± 13% and 42 ± 9%, respectively) and target plant density (56 ± 7%). Beetles in the Chrysomelidae and Curculionidae families were more effective at reducing plant size than other groups.

Source: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2012.02209.x/abstract

Evaluation of natural enemies used in acclimatization biological  control programs  (Classical biological control):

 During the last scentury:

4200 introductions of natural enemies with 600 species were conducted for the biological control of 416 pest species in 168 countries

384 natural enemies established

164 pest species were totally controlled

64 species of pests were partially controlled

Through:

82% of parasitoids

17% of predators

1% of pathogenic organisms

Thank you Masoud:

Thank you, dear Lateef, for your help and suggestion. As far as Dr. A.A. Buhroo is concerned, I revere him as a great entomologist of our region, but unfortunately, his field of expertise is Coleopterology in general and 'bark beetles', to be precise. Nevertheless, I already did consult him regarding the identification, but he suggested to look up the related literature and concerned experts.

Dear Siamak Roshandel,

For preparing strong colony of insect you must be focused upon the Egg Production by the insect also for making insects lay more no. of eggs,  you could have try with the oviposition attractant and stimulant so that insects especially female could get attracted towards the treated surface and could be enforced to lay higher no. of eggs as well-established in other class of insects, but for that you needed to explore the attractant/ stimulant for that articular insect.

Though this step is much tedious but quiet interesting.

Best of Luck

Hi,

This is not a species of Cotesia as Cotesia spp. does not have areolet (closed cell) in the fore wing. This could be a Venanus sp. as there is only one microgastrine parasitoid is reported so far from this host. The images of propodeum and metasoma (in dorsal view) helps to identify it into generic level.

As far as I know, only little is known on parasitoid dispersal and how this is influenced by plant biodiversity. I am just starting a project to investigate how the presence of different plant species influences parasitoid dispersal and host detection under field conditions. I found one interesting paper on this topic: Bezemer et. al 2010: Behaviour of male and female parasitoids in the field: influence of patch size, host density, and habitat complexity. Ecological Entomology 35.

Best, Ilka

Laboratory studies were conducted to determine the effects of constant temperatures (7, 22, and 30°C) and corresponding fluctuating temperatures (0-14, 15-29, and 23-37°C) on the development of diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella (L.), and its North American parasitoid Diadegma insulare (Hellén). Parasitized third-instar diamondback moth larvae were reared until adult mortality in individual thermal gradient cells at different temperature regimes. Larval mortality, parasitism success, pupal mortality, larval and pupal developmental time, adult longevity, and pupal and adult dry weight were recorded. Overall diamondback moth larval mortality was low. The pupal mortality of D. insulare increased with increasing temperature; however, diamondback moth did not show such a response. Greatest parasitism success (67%) was found at constant and fluctuating 22°C and fluctuating 7°C, and the lowest (30%) at fluctuating 30°C. Longer development times and greater pupal body masses occurred at lower temperatures for both insects. Significant differences occurred between constant and fluctuating temperature regimes for most parameters of both insects. Fluctuating compared with constant temperatures caused shorter development times, similar body mass, and higher adult longevity for both insects at optimal and lower temperature ranges. Both insects experienced 0°C at fluctuating 7°C (0-14°C) and survived. These results have important implications for extrapolating temperature effects on insects in laboratory studies with constant temperatures. Comparing successful parasitism capacity of the wasp and pupal survival and body mass of both host and parasitoid, we conclude that D. insulare is a more effective parasitoid at lower temperatures.

Dear Eric Guerra-Grenier

With this old pest, most  attempt for biological control were limited , Little information on biological control of grape phylloxera is available; environmental and root conditions are more important than natural enemies.

Beauveria bassiana, Metarhizium anisopliae and Paecilomyces farinosus against phylloxera was demonstrated. evaluation the potential of entomopathogenic nematodes in laboratory bioassays.

Pls. find the attached files

T. W. Fisher, Thomas S. Bellows, L. E. Caltagirone, D. L. Dahlsten, Carl B. Huffaker, G. Gordh. 1999. Handbook of Biological Control: Principles and Applications of Biological Control Academic Press,Pp.104. ISBN0080533019, 9780080533018

Dharam P Abrol. 2013. Integrated Pest Management: Current Concepts and Ecological Perspective Academic Press,Pp. 576. ISBN0124017096, 9780124017092

Noubar J. Bostanian, Charles Vincent, Rufus Isaacs. 2012. Arthropod Management in Vineyards:: Pests, Approaches, and Future Directions Springer Science & Business Media,Pp. 508. ISBN9400740328, 9789400740327

H. C. Coppel, J. W. Mertins.  2012. Biological Insect Pest Suppression  Advanced Series in Agricultural Sciences Springer Science & Business Media,Pp. 314. ISBN3642664873, 9783642664878.

Regards

Prof. Houda Kawas

look at the attached works.

Pier

Taxonomy, biology, and efficacy of two Australian parasitoids of the eucalyptus gall wasp, Leptocybe invasa Fisher & La Salle (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae: Tetrastichinae)

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Occurrence of Two Local Megastigmus Species Parasitic on the Eucalyptus Gall Wasp Leptocybe invasa in Israel and Turkey

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Biological control of the eucalyptus gall wasp Ophelimus maskelli (Ashmead): taxonomy and biology of the parasitoid species Closterocerus chamaeleon (Girault), with information on its establishment in Israel.

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Biology, revised taxonomy and impact on host plants of Ophelimus maskelli , an invasive gall inducer on Eucalyptus spp. in the Mediterranean Area

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Two new Australian species of Stethynium (Hymenoptera: Mymaridae), larval parasitoids of Ophelimus maskelli (Ashmead) (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) on Eucalyptus

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These articles contain easy identification keys to discern between Gall Wasps and Parasitoid Wasps.

Best regards,

Alex

Answer from subject expert- Many members of families- Eulophidae, Encyrtidae, Trichogrammatidae, Perilampidae, Pteromalidae are known to parasitize various species of chrysopids. However, we have not come across high percentage of percent parasitism in an alarming manner. Though there are here and there reports on natural parasitism.

males will have long hairs on the antennae and females wont.

This caterpillar is a young polypod larva, very probably of a geometrid moth (Lepidoptera Geometridae), because of the absence of the first three pairs of prolegs (false abdominal legs) present in many (almost all) other families of Lepidoptera. It is not a parasitoid wasp larva. Regards,

Rinaldo Nicoli

Dear Luis

thanks a lot about your information, additives and advise

The problem with Carola's answer is that using temperatures recorded from a nearby weather station is not a great way to determine those thresholds because most insects live in a narrow boundary layer that will have very different temperature/humidity conditions than ambient. The other issue is that nature is dynamic while laboratory conditions are relatively static. 102F may be lethal with 24H exposure but have little effect if it lasts for 10 minutes.

   There is also the problem that some organisms make major transitions at sublethal temperatures. An example is the winter versus summer morph of the melon/cotton aphid. At least for a parasitoid, there will be a significant effect on parasitoid size depending on whether you use a summer (small) or winter (large) adapted melon aphid colony. Wasps get bigger if more food is available, and larger wasps are able to produce more offspring.

While in principle "read nature and you get the answers" is a great idea, you need to be very careful about the application. The world is a very different place when you are the size of an ant. Using the literature is great because it provides an answer based on what other people have done within the limitations of the laboratory setting.

Sophy,

we have since the 1980s used the natural tendency of the wasps to look for light above them. So put a population of Trichogramma into a container with a soft plastic lid or a stopper (made of sponge material you cut) to introduce one of these manually made not graduated pipette with a long capillary end. Now wrap the pot and the beginning of the gross end of the pipette with dark tissue or aluminum paper to get it real dark in the container and point the capillary part to a lamp above. You quickly see the wasps come out into the glass tube where at the top they have to cue in the capillary. With a stopper (Knete or cork) you hinder them to get out. Now you can sex them looking at the antenna, then you let escape the ones you don't want (or smash them between your fingers) and let simply walk the others into a tube put over the pipette exit. It is easy, they do what you want (no need for an exauster). Good luck! Viel Erfolg !

In northwest Uttar Pradesh, India Binodoxys (=Trioxys) indcus (Subba Rao & Sharma) was evaluated in my laboratory. The results demonstrated that it has potential to maintain the aphids (also Aphis gossypii) below economic injury level.