Suitability of Chinese oak silkworm eggs for the multigenerational rearing of the parasitoid Trichogramma leucaniae

PLoS One. 2020 Apr 21;15(4):e0231098. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0231098. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

Trichogramma leucaniae is believed to be an efficient biological control agent for controlling the soybean pod borer [SPB; Leguminivora glycinivorella]. The large eggs of Chinese oak silkworm, Antheraea pernyi, are one of the best alternative host for mass production of Trichogramma. However, they are considered poor host for the growth and development of T. leucaniae. Here, we determine the feasibility of successive rearings of T. leucaniae on the large eggs for eight generations and evaluated their capacity of parasitizing SPB eggs of different ages. In the first four generations, the suitability of T. leucaniae reared on large eggs exhibited a significant increasing tendency and then decreased with the successive generations thereafter. The percentage of parasitized eggs and number of emerged adults per egg were increased from 40.0% and 10.8 adults/egg in F1 generation to 86.7% and 36.4 adults/egg in F4 generation respectively. In addition, T. leucaniae reared on A. pernyi for four generations significantly parasitized more SPB eggs regardless of egg age compared with those reared on Corcyra cephalonica eggs. These results provided useful information on the feasibility of mass production of T. leucaniae by reared for successive generations on A. pernyi large eggs.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Bombyx / parasitology*
  • Eggs / parasitology*
  • Female
  • Glycine max / parasitology
  • Host-Parasite Interactions
  • Humans
  • Hymenoptera / growth & development*
  • Hymenoptera / pathogenicity
  • Male
  • Ovum / parasitology
  • Pest Control, Biological / methods*

Grants and funding

LSZ was partially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFD0201000). YYH was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31901946). WX was supported by the Department of Science and Technology, Jilin Province, China (20180201015NY and 20190103102JH). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.