The changing use of the ovipositor in host shifts by ichneumonid ectoparasitoids of spiders (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae, Pimplinae).

ABSTRACT: Accurate egg placement into or onto a living host is an essential ability for many parasitoids, and changes in associated phenotypes, such as ovipositor morphology and behaviour, correlate with significant host shifts. Here, we report that in the ichneumonid group of koinobiont spider-ectoparasitoids ("polysphinctines"), several putatively ancestral taxa (clade I here), parasitic on ground-dwelling RTA-spiders (a group characterised by retrolateral tibial apophysis on male palpal tibiae), lay their eggs in a specific way. They tightly bend their metasoma above the spider's cephalothorax, touching the carapace with the dorsal side of the ovipositor apically ("dorsal-press"). The egg slips out from the middle part of the ventral side of the ovipositor and moves towards its apex with the part

SUBMITTER: Takasuka K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5873220 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature