Pupal-adult parasitism of the coconut hispine beetle by the koinobiont pupal parasitoid Tetrastichus brontispae

Publication date: Available online 31 July 2018Source: Biological ControlAuthor(s): Keiji Takasu, Jemimah N. Ndabarua, Hieu Thi Pham, Shun-ichiro TakanoAbstractPupal parasitoids are considered to be idiobionts. However, some pupal parasitoids do not seem to kill or paralyze hosts at oviposition, including Tetrastichus brontispae, an endo-pupal parasitoid of Brontispa longissima. We conducted laboratory experiments to determine if T. brontispae parasitizes pupal hosts with a koinobiont developmental strategy. For this to be the case, its immatures would have to develop during the host transition from pupa to adult and in adulthood. With 0-d-old to 5-d-old pupal hosts, the T. brontispae females stung hosts of all ages with over 80% frequency. When the pupal hosts were parasitized, there were two modes of parasitism: pupal parasitism and pupal-adult parasitism. For pupal hosts that were parasitized, the majority showed a typical pupal parasitism, involving first the mummification of parasitized pupae and then the development of the parasitoid immatures within and emergence from these mummified pupae. However, the parasitized pupae that did not become mummified developed to host adults in which the parasitoid immatures developed, indicating pupal-adult parasitism. When parasitized pupal hosts were mummified, the 0-d-old to 3-d-old pupae were more likely than the older pupae to be mummified and had a greater number of parasitoid adults produced per host. The pupal-adult parasitism...
Source: Biological Control - Category: Biology Source Type: research