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cje ›› 2011, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (07): 1322-1326.

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Host-density patches selection and optimal foraging behavior of Meteorus pulchricornis(Hymenoptera: Braconidae).

YANG De-song1,2,3, MENG Ling1,2, LI Bao-ping1,2**   

  1. 1College of Plant Protection, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China; 2Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Crop Diseases and Pests, Ministry of Education, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China; 3College of Agriculture, Shihezi University, Shihezi 832000, Xinjiang, China
  • Online:2011-07-08 Published:2011-07-08

Abstract: A large transparent cage trial was conducted to observe the host selection of parasitoid Meteorus pulchricornis and its residence time on different host-density patches of Spodoptera exugia larvae, and the Cox proportional hazard model was used to examine the effects of host density, oviposition, and foraging attributes on the patch-residence time. The parasitoid made more choices of and undertook more visits to higher-density patches to realize higher parasitism rate. The residence time on the patches increased with host density. Cox model fitting results indicated that both the host density and the number of oviposition during the observation period had negative effects on the patch-leaving tendency, while the interaction of the two factors produced positive effects on the patch-leaving tendency, which could warrant the parasitoids to optimally exploit host patches to gain maximum fitness.

Key words: Soil salinity, Peroxidase(POD), Ecological anatomy, Water conductance, Wood quality