Sex Allocation and Pseudoarrhenotoky in Phytoseiid Mites

Sabelis, Maurice W.; Nagelkerke, C.J.

doi:10.1007/978-1-4684-1402-8_16

Cited by 17 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Previous work with parasitoids has found evidence that olfactory cues left by other females lead to sex ratio adjustment in Trissolcus grandis (Kochetova 1978) and Telenomus remus (van Welzen & Waage 1987) but not in N. vitripennis (Wylie 1976) or Spalangia cameroni (King 1989). A role for similar cues was suggested in the mite Phytoseiulus persimilis , where females lay a less-biased sex ratio on a patch if it was previously visited by another female (Sabelis & Nagelkerke 1993). However, the cue in these experiments could have been the eggs laid by the previous female, as occurs with N. vitripennis (Werren 1980; Shuker & West 2004; Shuker et al 2005).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…Our aim in this study was to test the importance of several possible cues used by females. In our first two experiments we tested whether females produce less female-biased sex ratios in response to two cues that might suggest a higher likeli-hood that other females will lay eggs on a patch: (1) previous encounters with other females (Wylie 1976; Strand 1988; King & D’Souza 2004; and (2) olfactory cues from other females (Wylie 1976; Kochetova 1978; van Welzen & Waage 1987; Sabelis & Nagelkerke 1993). In our final two experiments we investigated how females adjust their offspring sex ratio in response to the interaction between the number of females laying eggs on a patch and patch size (Waage 1982).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Information use in space and time: sex allocation behaviour in the parasitoid wasp Nasonia vitripennis

et al. 2007

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Behavioural decisions require the appropriate use of relevant information about the environment. However, individuals may have imperfect information, imposing a constraint on adaptive behaviour. We explored how information use influences the sex allocation behaviour of the parasitoid wasp Nasonia vitripennis in response to local mate competition. Optimal sex ratios under local mate competition require females to estimate the number of other females that contribute eggs to a patch. Females rapidly changed their sex allocation in response to changes in the number of females in the environment, suggesting that they are not constrained by how quickly they can respond to new information. Furthermore, females also showed some response to olfactory cues that indicated oviposition by other females, suggesting that such indirect cues may be part of their information repertoire. Both the absolute and the relative size of the patch were important for sex ratio decisions, with sex ratios declining on larger patches in a way that suggests that large patches in effect become more than one patch, with females on larger patches allocating sex increasingly independently of other females. We conclude by highlighting variation among species in whether particular cues are used for sex allocation.

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