Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Host choice and fitness correlates for conopid flies parasitising bumblebees

Host choice and fitness correlates for conopid flies parasitising bumblebees Two parasitoid flies, Physocephala rufipes and Sicus ferrugineus (Diptera, Conopidae), and their hosts, Bombus spp., coexist at various locations in northwestern Switzerland. A detailed field study showed that both conopid species use the host B. pascuorum to a similar degree, while the host B. terr-luc (a pooled category of B. terrestris and B. lucorum ) is more frequently parasitised than expected by S. ferrugineus . The host B. lapidarius in turn is exclusively used by P. rufipes . Furthermore, hosts of B. terr-luc and B. pascuorum parasitised by S. ferrugineus were larger than hosts parasitised by P. rufipes , or than those not parasitised. The findings suggest that S. ferrugineus selects larger hosts and may displace P. rufipes . Pupal weight, a predictor of adult body size and parasitoid fecundity, is positively correlated with host size and larger pupae are more likely to emerge, while host species had no effect on the probability of emergence in either conopid species. Host species affected pupal weight in S. ferrugineus , but not in P. rufipes , although P. rufipes grew larger in hosts of a given size. Daughters emerged from larger pupae than males, but this did not correlate with larger host sizes. These observations add to the scarce knowledge of dipteran parasitoids. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Oecologia Springer Journals

Host choice and fitness correlates for conopid flies parasitising bumblebees

Schmid-Hempel, Regula; Schmid-Hempel, Paul
Oecologia , Volume 107 (1) – Mar 1, 1996
Download PDF
8 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/springer-journals/host-choice-and-fitness-correlates-for-conopid-flies-parasitising-TBHSfrcVy1

References (42)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 by Springer-Verlag
Subject
Life Sciences; Ecology; Plant Sciences
ISSN
0029-8549
eISSN
1432-1939
DOI
10.1007/BF00582236
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Two parasitoid flies, Physocephala rufipes and Sicus ferrugineus (Diptera, Conopidae), and their hosts, Bombus spp., coexist at various locations in northwestern Switzerland. A detailed field study showed that both conopid species use the host B. pascuorum to a similar degree, while the host B. terr-luc (a pooled category of B. terrestris and B. lucorum ) is more frequently parasitised than expected by S. ferrugineus . The host B. lapidarius in turn is exclusively used by P. rufipes . Furthermore, hosts of B. terr-luc and B. pascuorum parasitised by S. ferrugineus were larger than hosts parasitised by P. rufipes , or than those not parasitised. The findings suggest that S. ferrugineus selects larger hosts and may displace P. rufipes . Pupal weight, a predictor of adult body size and parasitoid fecundity, is positively correlated with host size and larger pupae are more likely to emerge, while host species had no effect on the probability of emergence in either conopid species. Host species affected pupal weight in S. ferrugineus , but not in P. rufipes , although P. rufipes grew larger in hosts of a given size. Daughters emerged from larger pupae than males, but this did not correlate with larger host sizes. These observations add to the scarce knowledge of dipteran parasitoids.

Journal

Oecologia – Springer Journals

Published: Mar 1, 1996

There are no references for this article.