Chemoecology of Insect Eggs and Egg Deposition

Abstract

This is the first book to focus on insect eggs since the publication , in 1981, of Hinton's comprehensive but somewhat amorphous Biology of Insect Eggs, and the only book that has attempted to pull together aspects of the chemoecology of the eggs and oviposition. The first six chapters comprise the section on chemoecology of eggs. Here, I think, the editors have had to struggle to bring together appropriate work, and some of the chapters seem tangential to the topic. The most relevant are those of Gillott, and Eisner and colleagues. Gillott describes the female accessory glands and brings together information on the glandular origins of different chemical products associated with oviposition and the egg. The chapter by Eisner and colleagues brings together the various studies, mostly their own, on the chemicals passed in spermatophores to the female and which subsequently are found in the eggs. This is the first time such a review has been attempted and it is informative, readable and well illustrated. The chapter by Blum and Hilker on Chemical Protection of Eggs is also central to the topic, but suffers from the fact that much of it simply describes the compounds present in adults that are possibly also present in eggs. However, two tables list the compounds that are known to occur in or on eggs and the diversity of formulae is well illustrated. Perhaps it is still too soon to write a really satisfactory account of this topic. The first chapter, by Trougakos and Margaritis, gives a detailed account of egg morphology and egg morphogenesis in Dros-ophila, about which most is known, with reference to the eggs of other species where possible. The last two chapters of this section deal with Brood Protection in Social Insects, by Ayasse and Paxton, and the Role of Microorganisms for Eggs and Progeny, by Kellner. Both are interesting chapters although the information on eggs is almost incidental. The last seven chapters are devoted to the chemoecology of egg deposition. Whether egg deposition is different from oviposition never became clear to me, but that is trivial. Here there is no shortage of material. The first chapter, by Sta¨dlerSta¨dler, is a good survey of the role of plant chemical cues used by insects for locating and identifying host plants. It also includes a brief account of the sensory physiology involved in the perception of chemical cues. This is followed by a most interesting chapter by Hilker and her colleagues entitled The Plant's Response towards Insect Egg Deposition, including the induction of galls. Then comes a review by Anderson of oviposition marking phero-mones in herbivorous and carnivorous insects. Carnivorous, here, refers mainly to Hymenopteran parasitoids, but includes predaceous larvae of coccinellids and chrysopids. Subsequent chapters by McCall, and by Steidle and van Loon consider the chemoecology of oviposition site selection by insects of medical and veterinary importance and by parasitoids and predators, respectively. All these chapters are, rightly, largely descriptive and lack...

Different Oviposition Strategies of Closely Related Damselfly Species as an Effective Defense against Parasitoids

“…This indicates that the ability of C. viridis to oviposit into substrates such as tree bark provides a defense for the eggs and increases the chances of offspring survival, whereas the L. sponsa eggs deposited into the soft-stemmed herbs are more exposed to enemies. Species that invest heavily in egg defense are unable to lay as many eggs as species that do not protect their eggs [34] like our study species.…”