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The pay‐off from superparasitism in the solitary parasitoid Venturia canescens

A female parasitoid encountering an already parasitized host has to decide whether to superparasitize or to reject the host. The decision will affect her reproductive success. If she superparasitizes and her offspring wins the competition, she gains an offspring. If, however, her offspring loses the competition, she gains nothing and the investment in terms of handling time and eggs is lost. Obviously, a rejection also does not pay but generally includes no or little costs (van Alphen & Visser, 1990). Theoretical studies have shown that the optimal decision depends on environmental conditions and physiological state of the female parasitoid (for a review see Speirs et al., 1991). However, theory is based on the assumptions that the female is able to recognize parasitized hosts and that a second or later laid egg still has a probability to win the competition inside the host. Host discrimination is well known in parasitoids (van Lenteren, 1981) but very few studies have justified the second assumption. The reason is that it is generally difficult to assess which of the females that oviposited in a particular host is the mother of the emerging parasitoid. The aim of the present paper is to validate the hypothesis that superparasitism has a pay-off, in the case of the ichneumonid wasp Venruria cunescens (Gravenhorst), a solitary endoparasitoid of the phycitid moth Ephestia kuehniellu Zeller. by using a genetic marker that expresses as a slightly different pigmentation pattern on the fourth abdominal segment.