Journal of Biological Control

The PDF file you selected should load here if your Web browser has a PDF reader plug-in installed (for example, a recent version of Adobe Acrobat Reader).

If you would like more information about how to print, save, and work with PDFs, Highwire Press provides a helpful Frequently Asked Questions about PDFs.

Alternatively, you can download the PDF file directly to your computer, from where it can be opened using a PDF reader. To download the PDF, click the Download link above.

Fullscreen Fullscreen Off


Belated copulation has been observed as one of the major factors that influence the fecundity and progeny sex ratio in parasitic wasps. A young (0-12h old) female mated with 0-12h old male, Binodoxys indicus produces 131.6±8.08 progeny within 4 days of life. However, older female mated with older male (both 96-108 h old) yields only 89.0±12.54 progeny. The progeny sex ratio (proportion of males) is female-biased (0.36±.03) when the parents were younger (0-12h old) but is male·biased (0.59±0.06) when the parents were older (96-108h old). Therefore, it implies that most of the daughters are produced during earlier phase of reproduction. The analysis of the data shows that only maternal age at copulation influences the total births significantly while both maternal as well as paternal age during copulation influence the progeny sex ratio. The implication of these results is discussed with reference to the maximisation of yield of total births as well as the female births for mass propagation and field release of the parasitoids in biocontrol programmes.

Keywords

Aphis gossypii, Binodoxys indicus, Biocontrol, Parasitoid, Progeny Sex Ratio.
User
Notifications