Aspects of the Reproductive Biology of Leptopilina boulardi (Hymenoptera: Eucoilidae)

Abstract

Reproductive and life-history parameters of the parasitoid Leptopilina boulardi (Barbotin et al.) were experimentally determined. Two cohorts of wasps originally reared on Drosophila simulans (Sturtevant) were used, one exposed to a laboratory strain of D. melanogaster (Meigen), the other a sympatrically collected strain of D. simulans. Parasitoids presented with D. melanogaster larvae produced significantly more male (163.8 ± 10.2), female (129.6 ± 9.8), and total progeny (293.4 ± 10.1), and exhibited a significantly higher sex ratio (0.55 ± 0.03) than did those presented with D. simulans larvae (90.9 ± 5.0, 93.5 ± 5.0, 184.4 ± 5.2, and 0.49 ± 0.02, respectively). These data confirm previous estimates of host species suitability. Mean length of life and schedules of progeny production did not differ significantly between groups. Both cohorts exhibited similar fertility distributions with peaks in oviposition rate occurring on the second day of host exposure. This peak was followed by a sharp decline, which attenuated slowly during a long period of post-reproductive survival—9.8 ±0.7 days for the cohort presented with D. melanogaster larvae; 8.4 ± 0.6 days for the cohort presented with D. simulans larvae.