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Optimal patch residence time in egg parasitoids: innate versus learned estimate of patch quality

  • Behavioural Ecology
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Abstract

Charnov’s marginal value theorem predicts that female parasitoids should exploit patches of their hosts until their instantaneous rate of fitness gain reaches a marginal value. The consequences of this are that: (1) better patches should be exploited for a longer time; (2) as travel time between patches increases, so does the patch residence time; and (3) all exploited patches should be reduced to the same level of profitability. Patch residence time was measured in an egg parasitoid Anaphes victus (Hymenoptera: Mymaridae) when patch quality and travel time, approximated here as an increased delay between emergence and patch exploitation, varied. As predicted, females stayed longer when patch quality and travel time increased. However, the marginal value of fitness gain when females left the patch increased with patch quality and decreased with travel time. A. victus females appear to base their patch quality estimate on the first patch encountered rather than on a fixed innate estimate, as was shown for another egg parasitoid Trichogramma brassicae. Such a strategy could be optimal when inter-generational variability in patch quality is high and within-generational variability is low.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by research grants from NSERC to G. B. and the MRI/INRA (M. B. Charpentier). We thank D. Thibodeau for her technical assistance and C. Bernstein and B. Roitberg for their comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. This is contribution 335/2003.09.01R of the CRDH, Agriculture et Agroalimentaire Canada, St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec. This work is also part of GDR 2155 Ecologie Comportementale (CNRS commission 30). These experiments comply with the current laws of Canada.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre de Recherche et de Développement en Horticulture, Agriculture et Agroalimentaire Canada, 430 Boulevard Gouin, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, J3B 3E6, Canada

    Guy Boivin

  2. Department of Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University, 21111 Lakeshore Road, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec, H9X 3V9, Canada

    Guy Boivin

  3. INRA, BP167, 400 Route des Chappes, 06903, Sophia Antipolis, France

    Xavier Fauvergue & Eric Wajnberg

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  1. Guy Boivin
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  2. Xavier Fauvergue
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  3. Eric Wajnberg
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Correspondence to Guy Boivin.

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Boivin, G., Fauvergue, X. & Wajnberg, E. Optimal patch residence time in egg parasitoids: innate versus learned estimate of patch quality. Oecologia 138, 640–647 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-003-1469-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-003-1469-z

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