Facultative gregarious development in a solitary parasitoid wasp,Dendrocerus carpenteri: larvae may share nutritional resources

Solitary parasitoids generally produce only one offspring per host. Dendrocerus carpenteri (Curtis) (Hymenoptera: Megaspilidae) develops as an idiobiont ectoparasitoid on prepupae and pupae of primary aphid parasitoids inside the mummified aphid host. Females normally deposit a single egg but superparasitize when suitable hosts are scarce. We show that facultative gregarious development may occur but is constrained by resource competition between larvae. The probability of more than one offspring surviving increased with the intensity of parasitism; an age difference of ≤9 h between older and younger first instars did not promote gregarious development. Two female parasitoids and, rarely, up to three male parasitoids could develop together. Average body size in terms of dry mass did not differ between singly developing females and the combined mass of two females sharing host resources, but the combined mass of gregarious males was greater than that of their singly developing counterparts. Females were 3× more likely to eclose from single than gregarious mummies. The amount of host resources available per larva declines with increasing clutch size, in turn causing a corresponding reduction of adult size and size‐dependent fitness attributes. We suggest that competition for limiting host supplies may influence the transition from solitary to gregarious development and should be considered in models of clutch size evolution in parasitoid wasps.