AMW (Germany)

Biological control of pest insects by natural enemies may be an effective, cheap and environmentally friendly alternative to synthetic pesticides. The cosmopolitan parasitoid wasp species Bracon brevicornis Wesmael and B. hebetor Say (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) use lepidopteran species as hosts, including insect pests like Ephestia kuehniella or Ostrinia nubilalis. Here, we compare the reproductive success of both Bracon species on E. kuehniella in a laboratory experiment. We asked (1) how the reproductive success on a single host larva changes with temperature, (2) how it changes with temperature when more host larvae are present and (3) how temperature and availability of host larvae influence the efficacy of Bracon species as biological control agents. In general, differences between B. brevicornis and B.