Trissolcus
basalis (Hymenoptera: Scelionidae) is an egg parasitoid(1) that
recognizes kairomones left by its host Nezara viridula (Heteroptera:
Pentatomidae) as clues to find egg masses to attack. Recent experiments
indicated that females of this wasp species are able to learn the features of
their environment allowing them to adjust their
foraging time on the patches of kairomones they are visiting, depending on
whether host eggs are found or not. In order to
assess the impact of such learning ability, a Monte Carlo, spatially-explicit,
individual-based simulation model was elaborate to quantify the foraging
efficiency of T. basalis females in different environments showing
different levels of hosts richness and distribution.
In all
environment tested, we compared the foraging efficiency of simulated T. basalis
females being able to learn or not. In all cases,
learning females visited a higher number of kairomone patches and attacked a
higher number of hosts than non-learning females.
Authors : Guillaume Dauphin, Patrick Coquillard & Eric Wajnberg.
download a presentation (in french)