Effect of egg production dynamics on the functional response of parasitoids

Functional response describes the number of hosts attacked by a parasitoid in relation to host densities and plays an important role by connecting behavioral-level processes with community-level processes. Most functional response studies were carried out using simple experimental designs where the insects were confined to a plain and small arena with different host densities during a fixed period of time. With these designs, other factors that might affect the functional response of parasitoids were not analyzed, such as fecundity, age, and experience. We proposed a series of latent-variables Markovian models that comprised an integrated approach of functional response and egg production models to estimate the realized lifetime reproductive success of adult parasitoids. As a case study, we used the parasitoids Anagyrus cachamai and A. lapachosus (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae), two candidate agents for neoclassical biocontrol of the Puerto Rican cactus pest mealybug, Hypogeococcus sp. (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae). Anagyrus cachamai and A. lapachosus presented a type III functional response. However, the two parasitoids behaved differently: for A. cachamai, the number of parasitized hosts decreased with female age and depended on the number of mature eggs that were available for oviposition, whereas A. lapachosus host parasitism increased with female age and was modulated by its daily egg load and previous experience. The tested species were assessed according to their physiology and prior experience. We estimated the number of mature eggs after emergence, egg production on the first day, egg production rate, proportion of eggs resorbed, egg resorption threshold, and egg storage capacity. The methodology presented may have large applicability in pest control, invasive species management, and conservation biology, as it has the potential to increase our understanding of the reproductive biology of a wide variety of species, ultimately leading to improved management strategies.