Bottom-up effect of host plant and nitrogen fertilization on parasitism efficiency of ectoparasitoid wasps Habrobracon hebetor (Hym.: Braconidae)
Paper ID : 1078-3IICE (R1)
Authors:
fereshteh salehi *1, Gholamhossein Gharekhani2, Jalal Shirazi3
1university of Maragheh
2maraghh university
3Iranian Research Institute of plant Protection
Abstract:
Abstract
The efficiency of biological control agents can be influenced by several factors such as the quality of their herbivore hosts and nutritional status of host plants. This study focused on parasitism capacity of Habrobracon hebetor (say) on Helicoverpa armigera (Hübner) reared on different nitrogen fertilized tomato plant cultivars. All experiments were carried out in a growth chamber at 25 ± 1 °C, 60 ± 5% RH 16:8 h L:D. Six cultivars including Kingston (K), Riogrand (RG), Earlyurbana (E), Redston (R), Superstrain-B (SB) and Primoearly (P), with four nitrogen levels (0, 210, 300, 390 kg Ha-1N as Urea 46%), were evaluated in 5 replications. Parasitism data were analyzed using CONSUME-MSChart software. The means, variances, and standard errors of the parameters were estimated with bootstrap method. The value of the net parasitism rate ( ) of H. hebetorvaried from 9.50±1.33 to 12.34±2.31 host/parasitoid on H. armigera reared on Primoearly with the lowest and Kingston with the highest N, respectively. The transformation rate from host population to parasitoid offspring ( ) on all treatments was close to 1 (C0≅R0). The total parasitism capacity of a stable population ( ) ranged from 0.224±0.094 to 0.358±0.090 host/parasitoid on H. armigera reared on Primoearly with the lowest N and Kingston with the highest N, respectively. The lowest observed values of the finite parasitism rate ( ) included 0.302, 0.263, 0.266, 0.285, 0.281and 0.261 hosts parasitoid-1 day-1 on hosts reared on K, RG, E, R, SB and P at the lowest N level, respectively; however, the highest recorded values for finite parasitism rate ( ) were 0.431, 0.332, 0.281, 0.303, 0.390 and 0.329 hosts parasitoid-1 day-1 observed on the same cultivars at the highest N level, respectively. In general, based on biological attributes obtained in the current study, H. hebetor revealed the optimum fitness on hosts reared on Kingston with the highest N level. It is concluded that parasitism capacity of the parasitoid was positively influence with nitrogen fertilizer treatments as an effective bottom-up factor.
Keywords:
Keywords: Habrobracon hebetor, Helicoverpa armigera, Parasitism capacity, Tomato cultivars, Nitrogen fertilization.
Status : Paper Accepted (Poster Presentation)