Host plants alter their volatiles to help a solitary egg parasitoid distinguish habitats with parasitized hosts from those without.

When attacked by herbivores, plants emit volatiles to attract parasitoids and predators of herbivores. However, our understanding of the effect of plant volatiles on the subsequent behaviour of conspecific parasitoids when herbivores on plants are parasitized is limited. In this study, rice plants were infested with gravid females of the brown planthopper (BPH) Nilaparvata lugens for 24 hr followed by another 24 hr in which the BPH eggs on plants were permitted to be parasitized by their egg parasitoid, Anagrus nilaparvatae; volatiles from rice plants that underwent such treatment were less attractive to subsequent conspecific parasitoids compared to the volatiles from plants infested with gravid BPH females alone. Chemical analysis revealed that levels of JA and JA‐Ile as well as of four volatile compounds—linalool, MeSA, α‐zingiberene and an unknown compound—from plants infested with BPH and parasitized by wasps were significantly higher than levels of these compounds from BPH‐infested plants. Laboratory and field bioassays revealed that one of the four increased chemicals—α‐zingiberene—reduced the plant's attractiveness to the parasitoid. These results suggest that host plants can fine‐tune their volatiles to help egg parasitoids distinguish host habitats with parasitized hosts from those without. We demonstrate that the parasitism of the brown planthopper (BPH) eggs by Anagrus nilaparvatae increased levels of four volatile chemicals emitted from BPH gravid female‐infested rice plants, and these increased volatiles decreased the attractiveness of the host plant to the conspecific parasitoid. Our results suggest that host plants can alter their volatiles to help egg parasitoids discriminate host habitats with parasitized hosts from those without parasitized hosts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]