Host parasitoid coevolution the role of parasitoid adaptation to endosymbiont mediated defense in paracoccus marginatus williams and granara de willink hemiptera pseudococcidae

Abstract

Acerophagus papayae Noyes and Schauff (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea: Encyrtidae), an introduced solitary koinobiont endoparasitoid is considered as one of the efficient parasitoids for the suppression of Papaya mealybug. Experiments were conducted to study the host instars preference, parasitic potential, emergence rate and developmental time of A. papayae on Paracoccus marginatus of five different host plants like papaya (Carica papaya L.), mulberry (Morus alba L.), brinjal (Solanum melongena L.), tapioca (Manihot esculenta Crantz) and parthenium (Parthenium hysterophorus L.). When parasitoids were given a choice for host instars selection for oviposition, A. papayae selected second instar mealybugs from parthenium, papaya and mulberry with 69.75, 77.50 and72.50 per cent parasitization, respectively. Whereas in the case of brinjal it selected third instars nymphs with 52.50 percent parasitization and in tapioca there is no significant difference in preferences among second (49.88%) and third instars (50.25%). The maximum parasitism rate of 76.00 and 72.40 per cent was found in papaya and mulberry, respectively followed by parthenium and tapioca with 64.00 and 46.00 per cent parasitization, respectively. However, minimum parasitism (32.67%) was newline newline newlineobserved in the brinjal host plant. The maximum emergence rate of 87.55 per cent was found in papaya followed by mulberry and parthenium with 83.44 and 79.26 per cent emergence, respectively. However, minimum emergence was observed in brinjal (70.60%) and tapioca (71.20%) host plants. The development time was found to be maximum for A. papayae (18.25 and 17.25 days) on P. marginatus of brinjal and tapioca, respectively. However, the development time of A. papayae on P. marginatus of parthenium, mulberry and papaya were statistically on par with 15.75, 15.00 and 14.75 days respectively. newlineHost plant volatiles are essential cues for the parasitoid host selection process. Hence, parasitoids orientation behaviour towards different host plants of papaya mealybugs was tested us