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New parasitoid-predator associations: female parasitoids do not avoid competition with generalist predators when sharing invasive prey

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Abstract

Optimal habitat selection is essential for species survival in ecosystems, and interspecific competition is a key ecological mechanism for many observed species association patterns. Specialized animal species are commonly affected by resource and interference competition with generalist and/or omnivorous competitors, so avoidance behavior could be expected. We hypothesize that specialist species may exploit broad range cues from such potential resource competitors (i.e., cues possibly common to various generalist and/or omnivorous predators) to avoid costly competition regarding food or reproduction, even in new species associations. We tested this hypothesis by studying short-term interactions between a native larval parasitoid and a native generalist omnivorous predator recently sharing the same invasive host/prey, the leaf miner Tuta absoluta. We observed a strong negative effect of kleptoparasitism (food resource stealing) instead of classical intraguild predation on immature parasitoids. There was no evidence that parasitoid females avoided the omnivorous predator when searching for oviposition sites, although we studied both long- and short-range known detection mechanisms. Therefore, we conclude that broad range cue avoidance may not exist in our biological system, probably because it would lead to too much oviposition site avoidance which would not be an efficient and, thus, beneficial strategy. If confirmed in other parasitoids or specialist predators, our findings may have implications for population dynamics, especially in the current context of increasing invasive species and the resulting creation of many new species associations.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Anthony Droui for carrying out some of the experiments and helpful comments on the experimental design, Cécile Thomas and Philippe Bearez (INRA Sophia Antipolis) for the technical assistance, Méline Beal and Jacques Frandon (Biotop, InVivo AgroSolutions) for providing biological materials, ANRT and InVivo AgroSolutions for the funding to AC (Ph.D. fellowship) and the French Ministry of Agriculture for the funding to ND (CASDAR project 10063). We thank David Manley for the linguistic revision of the manuscript.

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  1. French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), Institut Sophia Agrobiotech, 400 Route des Chappes, 06903, Sophia Antipolis, France

    Anaïs Chailleux, Eric Wajnberg, Yuxiang Zhou, Edwige Amiens-Desneux & Nicolas Desneux

  2. InVivo AgroSolutions, 83 avenue de la Grande Armée, 75782, Paris, France

    Anaïs Chailleux

  3. UPR HortSys, Cirad, 34398, Montpellier, France

    Anaïs Chailleux

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  1. Anaïs Chailleux
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Correspondence to Anaïs Chailleux.

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Chailleux, A., Wajnberg, E., Zhou, Y. et al. New parasitoid-predator associations: female parasitoids do not avoid competition with generalist predators when sharing invasive prey. Naturwissenschaften 101, 1075–1083 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-014-1246-3

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