Resting ecology of parasitoids in the field: safe in a bed and breakfast?

The selection of a safe place to rest at night may be an essential survival strategy for diurnal animals. Despite the importance of parasitoid wasps as consumers in terrestrial ecosystems, their selection of sites to rest and their mortality during the night have not been measured, to the best of ou...

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Autores principales: Tena, Alejandro, Bouvet, Juan Pedro, Abram, Paul K.
Formato: info:ar-repo/semantics/artículo
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: Elsevier 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12123/13308
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347222001440
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2022.05.011
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author Tena, Alejandro
Bouvet, Juan Pedro
Abram, Paul K.
author_browse Abram, Paul K.
Bouvet, Juan Pedro
Tena, Alejandro
author_facet Tena, Alejandro
Bouvet, Juan Pedro
Abram, Paul K.
author_sort Tena, Alejandro
collection INTA Digital
description The selection of a safe place to rest at night may be an essential survival strategy for diurnal animals. Despite the importance of parasitoid wasps as consumers in terrestrial ecosystems, their selection of sites to rest and their mortality during the night have not been measured, to the best of our knowledge, reflective of a general lack of understanding of resting behaviours of insects in the field. Here, we used parasitoid wasps of the genus Aphytis (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae), the highly successful biological control agents of the California red scale, Aonidiella aurantii (Hemiptera: Diaspididae), to study the resting ecology of parasitoids in the field over space and time, considering both external and internal correlates of parasitoid resting behaviour. At night, Aphytis wasps tended to rest on citrus tree leaves, which have a lower host density, but also fewer predators and a greater density of food sources for adult wasps, compared to fruit and branches. On this plant substrate, most of the population avoided predators and survived the night. Aphytis wasps selected leaves on which to rest at night in a nonrandom fashion. They tended to aggregate on leaves with high densities of hosts and food sources (honeydew) and with low densities of potential predators. During the day, wasps with lower egg loads tended to remain on leaves, likely resting and maturing eggs. Overall, our results demonstrate, for the first time, that parasitoids select certain sites at which to rest safely at night. These findings also suggest that the availability of safe resting places could be a valuable resource for beneficial insects in agroecosystems, especially those that have life spans extending over multiple days.
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institution Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA -Argentina)
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spelling INTA133082022-11-03T14:30:14Z Resting ecology of parasitoids in the field: safe in a bed and breakfast? Tena, Alejandro Bouvet, Juan Pedro Abram, Paul K. Parasitoides Ecología Insecta Depredación Agentes de Control Biológico Parasitoids Ecology Predation Aonidiella aurantii Aphytis Biological Control Agents The selection of a safe place to rest at night may be an essential survival strategy for diurnal animals. Despite the importance of parasitoid wasps as consumers in terrestrial ecosystems, their selection of sites to rest and their mortality during the night have not been measured, to the best of our knowledge, reflective of a general lack of understanding of resting behaviours of insects in the field. Here, we used parasitoid wasps of the genus Aphytis (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae), the highly successful biological control agents of the California red scale, Aonidiella aurantii (Hemiptera: Diaspididae), to study the resting ecology of parasitoids in the field over space and time, considering both external and internal correlates of parasitoid resting behaviour. At night, Aphytis wasps tended to rest on citrus tree leaves, which have a lower host density, but also fewer predators and a greater density of food sources for adult wasps, compared to fruit and branches. On this plant substrate, most of the population avoided predators and survived the night. Aphytis wasps selected leaves on which to rest at night in a nonrandom fashion. They tended to aggregate on leaves with high densities of hosts and food sources (honeydew) and with low densities of potential predators. During the day, wasps with lower egg loads tended to remain on leaves, likely resting and maturing eggs. Overall, our results demonstrate, for the first time, that parasitoids select certain sites at which to rest safely at night. These findings also suggest that the availability of safe resting places could be a valuable resource for beneficial insects in agroecosystems, especially those that have life spans extending over multiple days. EEA Concordia Fil: Tena, Alejandro. Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias. Centro de Protección Vegetal y Biotecnología; España Fil: Bouvet, Juan Pedro. Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias. Centro de Protección Vegetal y Biotecnología; España Fil: Bouvet, Juan Pedro. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Concordia; Argentina Fil: Abram, Paul K. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Agassiz Research and Development Centre; Canadá 2022-11-03T14:27:55Z 2022-11-03T14:27:55Z 2022-08 info:ar-repo/semantics/artículo info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12123/13308 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347222001440 0003-3472 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2022.05.011 eng info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess application/pdf Elsevier Animal Behaviour 190 : 11-21. (August 2022)
spellingShingle Parasitoides
Ecología
Insecta
Depredación
Agentes de Control Biológico
Parasitoids
Ecology
Predation
Aonidiella aurantii
Aphytis
Biological Control Agents
Tena, Alejandro
Bouvet, Juan Pedro
Abram, Paul K.
Resting ecology of parasitoids in the field: safe in a bed and breakfast?
title Resting ecology of parasitoids in the field: safe in a bed and breakfast?
title_full Resting ecology of parasitoids in the field: safe in a bed and breakfast?
title_fullStr Resting ecology of parasitoids in the field: safe in a bed and breakfast?
title_full_unstemmed Resting ecology of parasitoids in the field: safe in a bed and breakfast?
title_short Resting ecology of parasitoids in the field: safe in a bed and breakfast?
title_sort resting ecology of parasitoids in the field safe in a bed and breakfast
topic Parasitoides
Ecología
Insecta
Depredación
Agentes de Control Biológico
Parasitoids
Ecology
Predation
Aonidiella aurantii
Aphytis
Biological Control Agents
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12123/13308
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347222001440
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2022.05.011
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