Indirect plant-mediated interactions between heterospecific parasitoids that develop in different caterpillar species

Abstract

Abstract Koinobiont parasitoids induce physiological changes in their herbivorous hosts that affect how plants respond to herbivory. The signature of parasitoids on induced plant responses to feeding by parasitized herbivores indirectly impacts insect communities interacting with the plant. The effect may extend to parasitoids and cause indirect interaction between parasitoids that develop inside different herbivore hosts sharing the food plant. However, this type of indirect plant-mediated interactions (IPMIs) among parasitoid larvae has received very little attention. In this study, we investigated sequential and simultaneous plant-mediated interactions among two host-parasitoid systems feeding on Brassica oleracea plants: Mamestra brassicae parasitized by Microplitis mediator and Pieris rapae parasitized by Cotesia rubecula. We measured the mortality, development time and weight of unparasitized herbivores and performance of parasitoids that had developed inside the two herbivore species when sharing the food plant either simultaneously or sequentially. Plant induction by parasitized or unparasitized hosts had no significant effect on the performance of the two herbivore host species. In contrast, the two parasitoid species had asymmetrical indirect plant-mediated effects on each other’s performance. Cotesia rubecula dry weight was significantly increased by plants induced by M. mediator-parasitized hosts, while M. mediator development time was reduced by plant induced responses to conspecific but not to heterospecific parasitoids. Contrary to sequential feeding, parasitoids had no effect on each others performance when feeding simultaneously. These results reveal that indirect plant-mediated interactions among parasitoid larvae could involve any parasitoid species whose hosts share a food plant.