תוצאות חיפוש: מרים קישינבסקי

Parasitoids that encounter a previously parasitized host inspect it externally and internally, sometimes eventually laying additional eggs (superparasitism). The fitness effects of increased clutch sizes generated through superparasitism are widely studied, whereas the consequences of multiple host probings during the inspection received less attention.

The abundance of parasitoids on plants that harbor their monophagous herbivorous host often correlates with host numbers. However, when hosts are polyphagous, the species-specific characteristics of the plants can affect parasitoid abundance as well. We asked whether parasitoids that attack a polyphagous host aggregate on individual plants with high host densities, and whether plant-related factors also account for the parasitoids’ abundance on the plants.

Diversification of vegetation within and around agricultural habitats is an effective strategy to support populations of natural enemies of crops’ pests. Such diversification can be achieved by conservation of natural vegetation that develops spontaneously around the plots, as well as by active introduction of companion plants to the crop. In this study we compared these two approaches in pomegranate orchards in Mediterranean climate.