Nutritional state and food sources of Aphytis melinus in the field

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Abstract: We used high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to determine thenutritional state and food sources used by Aphytis melinus in the field. We compared theoverall sugar content and the glucose-fructose ratio between field-collected parasitoids andindividuals that received reference feeding treatments in the laboratory. Five out of twelvefield-collected individuals were characterized as “fed”. Moreover, they contained di- andtrisaccharides like erlose, melezitose, stachyose and raffinose that are typically present inhemipteran honeydews. Given that the laboratory reared parasitoids did not synthesizeoligosaccharides after sugar feeding, this results suggest that adult A. melinus useshemipteran honeydew as a food source in the field.

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