Eur. J. Entomol. 94 (4): 561-565, 1997
Impact of Vairimorpha ephestiae (Microsporidia: Nosematidae) on Bracon hebetor (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), an external parasite of the American bollworm, Heliothis armigera (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)
- N/A
The impact of the microsporidium Vairimorpha ephestiae on the parasitoid Bracon (= Habrobracon) hebetor increased by increasing the concentration of spores to which its host, Heliothis amigera was exposed. Infecting parasitized hosts with the microsporidia did not significantly affect either the egg or larval duration of the parasitoid, while it caused significant prolongation in pupal duration of B. hebetor. However, infected parasitized hosts produced female parasitoids with reduced longevity, oviposition period and fecundity.
It was concluded that the detrimental impact on the parasitoid might be related to nutritional deficiency caused by the accumulation of nondigestable spores in the parasitoid's gut lumen
Keywords: Microsporidia, Vairimorpha ephestiae, Braconidae, Bracon hebetor, Noctuidae, Heliothis armigera, pathogen-parasitoid interaction
Accepted: October 2, 1996; Published: October 1, 1997 Show citation
| ACS | AIP | APA | ASA | Harvard | Chicago | Chicago Notes | IEEE | ISO690 | MLA | NLM | Turabian | Vancouver |
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.