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Bio‐assay study of response by a parasitoid to frass and feeding substrates of its host, the stalk borer Eldana saccharina
Author(s) -
SMITH G S,
ALLISON J C S,
PAMMENTER N W
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
annals of applied biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.677
H-Index - 80
eISSN - 1744-7348
pISSN - 0003-4746
DOI - 10.1111/j.1744-7348.1994.tb04981.x
Subject(s) - frass , biology , saccharina , pyralidae , parasitoid , lepidoptera genitalia , botany , host (biology) , noctuidae , pest analysis , braconidae , hymenoptera , ecology , laminaria , algae
Summary In Petri dish and olfactometer tests Goniozus natalensis Gordh (Hymenoptera: Bethylidae) exhibited a host‐searching response upon contact with, and at a short distance from, frass of its natural host, Eldana saccharina Walker (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), whichever the substrate on which E. saccharina had been feeding. The substrates were two host plants, sugarcane or Cyperus papyrus L.; diet media based respectively on sugarcane, papyrus, or cellulose; or a synthetic diet medium, containing no plant material. Host‐searching behaviour increased in intensity with age and after mating of G. natalensis females. Parasitoids responded similarly to frass produced by male and female E. saccharina larvae. The substrates themselves elicited little response in G. natalensis. Frass of another borer, Sesamia calamistis Hamps. (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), fed on sugarcane‐based medium, also elicited little response in G. natalensis. The results suggest that frass of E. saccharina larvae contains a material, evidently volatile, to which their parasitoid G. natalensis responds, irrespective of the substrate on which the E. saccharina subsist.