Aggregation and the Coexistence of Competing Parasitoid Species

In nature, many insect species are attacked by more than one specialized species of parasitoid. We examine whether parasitoid aggregation among patches containing hosts can promote the coexistence of specialized parasitoids on the same host species. We construct models to analyze the effects of three types of parasitoid aggregation: direct density-dependent, inverse density-dependent, and density-independent aggregation. All three types of aggregation may facilitate coexistence, provided the parasitoid species show behavioral differences that produce different patterns of aggregation. By deriving general conditions of coexistence of parasitoids, we show that all three types of aggregation act to facilitate coexistence in the same way—by increasing the covariance between the distributions of susceptible hosts and the least common parasitoid. Although they act in the same way, in general the effect of density-independent aggregation in facilitating coexistence is greater than either direct or inverse density-dependent aggregation. This suggests that density-independent aggregation may have the greatest potential to facilitate the coexistence of specialize parasitoids using the same host.