| Large scale mass rearing of natural enemies has been a mean of improving biological control in the sugarcane intensive agriculture. Among them, Cotesia flavipes, a gregarious koinobiont endoparasitoid, was imported by Brasil to control caterpillars of the sugarcane borer Diatraea saccharalis. The C. flavipes larval development depends on its association with polydnavirus, which blocks the host defense reaction. To verify if the oviposition sequence (1st, 2nd or 3rd) and the female condition (mated or virgin) interfere in the number of C. flavipes descendents, 4th instar caterpillars of D. saccharalis were parasitized. Analysis of the data showed that: a) there is an inverse correlation between the parasitism efficiency and the host reaction... |
