Manipulation of plant odour preference by learning in the aphid parasitoid Aphelinus abdominalis (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae)

Title:

Manipulation of plant odour preference by learning in the aphid parasitoid Aphelinus abdominalis (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae)

Creator:

Mölck, Gunnar, Pinn, Helga, and Wyss, Urs

Identifier:

https://cdk.lib.cas.cz/client/handle/uuid:493b6103-6ff2-42ad-8734-78fa4baf5a8c
uuid:493b6103-6ff2-42ad-8734-78fa4baf5a8c

Subject:

Aphelinus abdominalis, aphid parasitoid, wind tunnel, Macrosiphum euphorbiae, Capsicum annuum, Solanum melongena, host location, plant-host complex, learning, and synomones

Type:

article, model:article, and TEXT

Description:

Aphelinus abdominalis Dalman (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae), a solitary endoparasitoid of cereal aphids [e.g. Sitobion avenae (F.)] and aphids in greenhouses [e.g. Myzus persicae (Sulzer) and Macrosiphum euphorbiae (Thomas)] is available as biological control agent against aphid pests in greenhouses. As little is yet known about its long-range host location after release, the in-flight orientation of female A. abdominalis was investigated with regard to the effects of post-emergence experience, using a wind tunnel bioassay. In no-choice tests experienced females responded to the odour of M. euphorbiae-infested sweet pepper and aubergine plants while naive females exhibited mostly random flights. In a choice test, offering infested and uninfested plants of the same species, experienced wasps were able to recognize the plant-host complex (PHC) and selected it as landing site. In contrast to uninfested plants, host-damaged plants (infested plants with aphids removed) attracted experienced females just as well as infested plants. When the responses of groups of parasitoids with experience on two different plant-host complexes were studied, specifically trained wasps were observed to orientate significantly better towards the infested target plant than wasps with previous experience on the non-target plant. A final choice test, with an infested pepper and an infested aubergine plant as odour sources, showed that females trained on one of the offered plant-host combinations significantly preferred the odour of the learnt PHC to that of the different PHC. The results suggest that A. abdominalis females employ specific volatile signals emitted by host-infested plants (synomones) during long-range host location. These odours must be learnt, e.g. in association with a successful oviposition.

Language:

English

Rights:

http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/
policy:public

Source:

European Journal of Entomology | 2000 Volume:97 | Number:4

Harvested from:

CDK

Metadata only:

false