Increased parasitization of California red scale in the field after exposing its parasitoid, Aphytis melinus, to a synthetic kairomone

The introduced parasitoid, Aphytis melinus DeBach (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae), utilizes a kairomone, O-caffeoyltyrosine, to recognize California red scale, Aonidiella aurantii (Maskell) (Homoptera: Diaspididae). Wasps used in augmentative release programs for California red scale on California citrus are reared on oleander scale, Aspidiotus nerii Bouché (Homoptera: Diaspididae), themselves reared on squash. Previous laboratory studies demonstrated that wasps reared on oleander scale but exposed to O-caffeoyltyrosine before bioassay more readily accepted California red scale covers for probing than wasps reared similarly but not exposed to O-caffeoyltyrosine. The goal of this study was to determine if wasps reared on oleander scale but exposed to O-caffeoyltyrosine actually parasitized a greater number of field-reared California red scale than unconditioned wasps. In order to distinguish between progeny of conditioned and unconditioned wasps in the field, we utilized two A.melinus strains that carried different electrophoretically distinguishable alleles. In half of the releases, Strain A was conditioned to O-caffeoyltyrosine and Strain B served as the control, while this pattern of conditioning was reversed for the remaining releases. Although there were differences in the rates of population growth of the two strains, whichever strain was the conditioned strain left a greater than expected number of progeny compared to the control strain in all comparisons. Exposure of A. melinus reared in commercial insectaries to O-caffeoyltyrosine prior to release may be a means to improve the effectiveness of such wasps in augmentative release programs to control California red scale.