Developmental and reproductive biology of the ectoparasitoid, Elasmus steffani, in a substitute host, Ephestia kuehniella
1Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina, Departamento de Biología, Ap. Postal 456, Lima, Perú
2Estación Experimental del Zaidín (CSIC), Department of Environmental Protection, Profesor Albareda 1, 18008-Granada,
España
Abstract
Elasmus steffani (Viggiani) (Hymenoptera: Elasmidae) is a gregarious idiobiont ectoparasitoid of Prays oleae (Bernard) (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae), an olive crop pest. In the substitute host Ephestia kuehniella (Zeller) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), the duration of the developmental stages was approximately 11-15 days. The preoviposition was 8.9 ± 5.0 days, and oviposition lasted 30.4 ± 10.5 days, with a reproduction capacity of 185.5 ± 62.3 eggs per female, for a mean of 5.4 ± 0.9 eggs per day. The oviposition rhythm reached its maximum when the parasitoid was 35 days of age. The lack of food negatively influenced survival of the adults, while those fed on a honey-water mixture lived significantly longer that those that also had access to a host as food. The female parasitoid fed upon 15% of the paralyzed larvae. The virgin female E. steffani exhibits arrhenotokic parthenogenesis.
Keywords: oviposition, feeding, longevity, olive orchards, Prays oleae
Correspondence: *mercedes.campos@eez.csic.es
Received: 18 November 2008 |
Copyright: This is an open access paper. We use the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license that permits unrestricted use, provided that the paper is properly attributed.
ISSN: 1536-2442 | Volume 10, Number 119
Redolfi I, Campos M. 2010. Developmental and reproductive biology of the ectoparasitoid, Elasmus steffani, in a substitute host, Ephestia kuehniella. Journal of Insect Science 10:119, available online: insectscience.org/10.119
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