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Q&A ViewAttendees 2

Plant-Insect Ecosystems

10-Minute Paper

P-IE: Biocontrol

The transgenerational consequences of maternal parasitism for aphid life history and suitability for subsequent parasitism

Sunday, October 31, 2021
3:54 PM – 4:06 PM MT
Location: Colorado Convention Center, Meeting Room 108-110
In-Person
Aphids parasitized in later instars can give birth to several nymphs before their reproduction is curtailed by the developing parasitoid.  We examined the life histories of Aphis fabae Scopoli born to mothers parasitized by Lysiphlebus fabarum Marshall, and their suitability as subsequent hosts, to test the 'fecundity compensation' hypothesis.  Maternal parasitism negatively impacted life history parameters, resulting in reduced estimates of population increase (rm, R0 and λ), and increased generation time (GT) and doubling time (DT).  These impacts were greater when mothers were parasitized by a female larvae than a male, and greater still when they were superparasitized.  Maternal parasitism produced aphids with shorter hind tibia (HTL), at birth and at maturity, but their developmental time was unaffected.  Although female L. fabarum readily accepted such aphids for oviposition, rates of mummification and wasp emergence were lower, and more so when the maternal parasitoid was female.  The resulting parasitoids took longer to develop than progeny from control wasps, had shorter HTLs, lower egg loads, smaller eggs, and produced fewer mummies with lower rates of adult emergence, all differences that were more pronounced when the maternal parasitoid was female.  The progeny of these wasps exhibited similar impairments to these biological parameters as their parents, demonstrating that the negative impacts of development in maternally parasitized hosts extended for two generations.  Thus, our results do not support fecundity compensation, but suggest that any benefits of post-parasitism reproduction will be offset by reduced fitness in both aphid progeny and the parasitoids that develop in them.