Speaker
Description
Filth flies are a common problem in the livestock industry, having negative effects on the health and wellbeing of livestock and their caretakers, leading to economic losses. With an increasing need for integrative pest management that relies less on pesticides, focus is shifting more to biological control such as the use of parasitoids. This calls for detailed knowledge on the olfactory and visual cues that parasitoids use to locate their hosts. To determine whether rearing methods can improve parasitoid efficacy, we investigated the effect of natal fly host species on host preference and parasitization behaviour of five pupal parasitoids, Muscidifurax raptorellus (Kogan and Legner), Nasonia vitripennis (Walker), Urolepis rufipes (Ashmead), Trichomalopsis sarcophagae (Gahan) and Pachycrepoideus vindemmiae (Rondani). Wasps were raised for either one or multiple generations on Musca domestica L. or Calliphora vomitoria L. (both Diptera) pupae and offered both fly hosts in a simple host choice set-up as well as a Y-tube choice essay. We chemically characterized the volatiles emitted by the pupae of these fly species and measured parasitoid responses following artificial transfer of semiochemicals between fly host species.
Key words: filth fly, pupal parasitoid, host preference, natal host, behavioural assays, semiochemicals, biological control
