Search

Objective: Sclerodermus wasps are important biocontrol agents of a class of wood borers. Bacterial symbionts influence the ecology and biology of their hosts in a variety of ways, including the formation of life-long beneficial or detrimental parasitic infections. However, only a few studies have explored the species and content of the symbionts in the Sclerodermus species., Methods: Here, a high-throughput sequencing study of the V3-V4 region of the 16S ribosomal RNA gene revealed a high level of microbial variety in four Sclerodermus waps, and their diversities and functions were also predicted., Results: The three most prevalent phyla of microorganisms in the sample were Firmicutes, Bacteroides, and Proteus. The KEEG pathways prediction results indicated that the three pathways with the highest relative abundances in the S . sichuanensis species were translation, membrane transport, and nucleotide metabolism. These pathways differed from those observed in S . guani , S . pupariae , and S . alternatusi , which exhibited carbohydrate metabolism, membrane transport, and amino acid metabolism, respectively. Bacteroides were found to be abundant in several species, whereas Wolbachia was the most abundant among S. sichuanensis , with a significant negative correlation between temperature and carriage rate., Conclusions: These results offer insights into the microbial communities associated with the bethylid wasps, which is crucial for understanding how to increase the reproductive capacity of wasps, enhance their parasitic effects, and lower cost in biocontrol., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Kang, Wang, Gong, Tang and Wei.)

The relationship between body size and fitness in parasitoid wasps has several effects on parasitic ability, reproductive behavior in female wasps, and progeny fitness. Female wasps with various body sizes were obtained by mass-rearing a gregarious ectoparasitoid, Sclerodermus pupariae, which is one of the excellent parasites to control the larvae and pupae of Buprestidae and Cerambycidae. We investigated the effects of body size of adult females introduced on Thyestilla gebleri (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) larvae on their paralysis time, pre-oviposition period, oviposition period and fecundity, and the related fitness of their offspring. Results showed that small female wasps needed more time to paralyze a host and had a higher mortality rate than large female wasps. More offspring were produced by large female wasps than by small female wasps, and the percentage and body size of female offspring was not affected by maternal body size. The duration of the egg stage was not affected by foundress size, nor was that of the pupal stage, but the duration of the larval stage and generation time of small female wasps was longer than that of large females. Our findings suggest that the parasitic fitness and offspring performance are affected by maternal size, and there is need to choose reasonable body size of female wasps, to optimally utilize mass rearing and to control target pests with the lowest mortality cost.

Three species of Doryctinae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) parasitize larvae of oak longhorn beetle Massicus raddei Blessig (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae), a serious wood borer pest in North China. Rhoptrocentrus quercusi sp. nov., is described as a new species and Doryctes petiolatus Shestakov, as well as Zombrus bicolor (Enderlein). The three species are idiobiont ectoparasitoids, and may have potential for biological control of oak longhorn beetle.