Differences in plant structure and host abundance, distribution and density within and between plants may affect host finding success of searching parasitoids. The main objective of this research consisted in developing and validating a model that can predict parasitism by Trichogramma evanescens on various plant structures. Also, we evaluated the effect of both artificial and natural plant structures on host encountering success and on searching behavior of two species of Trichogramma. / Size (S), heterogeneity (H) and connectivity (C) define plant structure. The development of the model of parasitism was based on laboratory experiments using three dimensional artificial plants of different combinations of S, H and C. The model was then validated with experiments, within greenhouse, using natural cruciferous plants of different structures. Significant regressions of observed values of parasitism as a function of those predicted by the model were obtained. / The effect of plant structure on two species of Trichogramma was studied by using three species of Lepidoptera and three structurally different but closely related crucifers. Also the distribution pattern of parasitized eggs according to leaf side and plant height was characterized. A repeated measure ANOVA in time where plant ages defined the repeated measures showed that all three main effects (plant, host, parasitoid) had significant effect on parasitism and only the parasitoid x plant structure interaction was significant. Mean percent of parasitism was higher on cabbage, intermediate on broccoli and lower on Brussels sprouts whereas cabbage appeared to be intermediate in plant structure, broccoli appeared to be the most simple and Brussels sprouts the most complex plant structure. On simple plant structure, both wasp species performed well on the three varieties of plant but T. evanescens outperformed T. pretiosum more often on the various plant structures. A doubly repeated measures ANOVA in space revealed significant effects of leaf side and plant height on parasitism, being greatest under leaf surface and at the base of the plant. The interaction between those two variables was not significant. / The effect of plant structure on searching behavior of T. evanescens was determined by direct observation of individual females searching on simple and complex plant structures during 1 hour. Time, frequence and sequence associated to activities and plant parts explored were obtained and analyzed. Plant structure had significant effect on time budget associated to activities (walking, resting, flying) and plant parts explored. / This study demonstrates that plant structure mediates ecological interactions by affecting host finding success and this may have important implications in population dynamics, evolution of hosts and parasitoids but also in biological control programs.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.36939 |
| Date | January 2001 |
| Creators | Gingras, Daniel. |
| Contributors | Boivin, Guy (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Natural Resource Sciences.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001809650, proquestno: NQ70031, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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