Journal
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 367, Issue 1605, Pages 3018-3024Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2012.0236
Keywords
aphid; apparent competition; body size; climate change; food web; optimal foraging
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Funding
- Linnean Society of London SynTax
- UK Natural Environment Research Council [NE/I528326/1]
- German Research Foundation [JA 1726/3-1]
- Cluster of Excellence CliSAP, University of Hamburg, through the DFG [EXC177]
- NERC [NE/I528326/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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Communities of insect herbivores are thought to be structured mainly by indirect processes mediated by shared natural enemies, such as apparent competition. In host-parasitoid interaction networks, overlap in natural enemy communities between any pair of host species depends on the realized niches of parasitoids, which ultimately depend on the foraging decisions of individuals. Optimal foraging theory predicts that egg-limited parasitoid females should reject small hosts in favour of future opportunities to oviposit in larger hosts, while time-limited parasitoids are expected to optimize oviposition rate regardless of host size. The degree to which parasitoids are time-or egg-limited depends in part on weather conditions, as this determines the proportion of an individual's lifespan that is available to foraging. Using a 10-year time series of monthly quantitative host-parasitoid webs, we present evidence for host-size-based electivity and sex allocation in the common secondary parasitoid Asaphes vulgaris. We argue that this electivity leads to body-size-dependent asymmetry in apparent competition among hosts and we discuss how changing weather patterns, as a result of climate change, may impact foraging behaviour and thereby the size-structure and dynamics of host-parasitoid indirect interaction networks.
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