A survey on foraging behavior of Fopius carpomyiae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), a parasitoid of ber fruit fly Carpomyia vesuviana (Diptera: Tephritidae)

Fopius carpomyiae Silvestri (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) is an egg and rare larval parasitoid of ber fruit fly, Carpomyia vesuviana Costa (Diptera: Tephritidae) in Bushehr and Khozestan provinces.

In this research, firstly the synchronous cohorts of F. carpomyiae females were produced. Then the mated females (7-8 days old) were released singly into petri dish containing a ber fruit infested by a clutch of ber fruit fly eggs. Each female (n = 20) was observed continuously under a stereomicroscope while she remained in the patch and the time of onset and duration of all distinguishable behavioral events were recorded using an MP3 voice recorder.

The wasp females devoted a lot of time to oviposition (146.40 ± 8.80 sec; 47%), and probing behaviors (98.75 ± 2.27 sec; 31%), during patch residence time (313.2 sec). The foragers allocated the least times to the resting, walking and flying behaviors. The average number of oviposition on each fruit was 1.85 ± 0.15, the maximum and minimum durations of ovipositor insertions resulting in parasitism were 44, and 217 sec, respectively. Moreover, on average, the egg load of F. carpomyiae females was 29.4, and the percentage of parasitism was 39.20.

According to the results, F. carpomyiae females showed the proper exploitation of host because of its effective foraging behaviors and high percentage of parasitism