Cardiff School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, Biomedical Sciences Building, Museum Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3AX, UK.
Cardiff School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, Biomedical Sciences Building, Museum Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3AX, UKDepartment of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, 1987 Upper Buford Circle, St. Paul, MN 55108, USADepartment of Entomology, University of Minnesota, 1980 Folwell Avenue, St. Paul, MN55108, USA.
Ecol Lett. 2012 Apr;15(4):357-64. doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2012.01745.x. Epub 2012 Feb 8.
An important assumption in insect parasitoid life-history theory is that, within parasitoid complexes (species assemblages associated with particular hosts), members attacking young host stages are more fecund than members targeting older ones. This hypothesis reflects the general trajectory of host survivorship curves: as a host cohort ages, availability to female parasitoids declines, as can the risk that the host - and the parasitoid offspring it carries - succumbs to extrinsic mortality. However, the analyses that provided empirical support for the hypothesis did not control for phylogeny. Using the original datasets, we use phylogenetically corrected analyses to test whether the results of the seminal study are upheld. Although we show those findings to be robust, the decline in fecundity could be a sampling artefact. We conclude that it would be unwise to assume the paradigm to be generally representative of natural parasitoid complexes.
昆虫寄生蜂生活史理论的一个重要假设是，在寄生蜂复合体（与特定宿主相关的物种组合）中，攻击幼期宿主的成员比攻击老年期宿主的成员具有更高的繁殖力。这一假设反映了宿主存活率曲线的一般轨迹：随着宿主群体的年龄增长，雌性寄生蜂的可用数量减少，宿主——以及它携带的寄生蜂后代——遭受外在死亡率的风险也会增加。然而，提供该假设经验支持的分析并没有控制进化关系。我们使用原始数据集，通过进化校正分析来检验开创性研究的结果是否成立。尽管我们发现这些发现是可靠的，但繁殖力的下降可能是一个抽样偏差。我们的结论是，假设这一范式普遍代表自然寄生蜂复合体是不明智的。
