CONICET-IEGEBA, Grupo de Investigación en Ecofisiología de Parasitoides, Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
J Insect Physiol. 2012 Dec;58(12):1562-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jinsphys.2012.09.010. Epub 2012 Oct 4.
Rain and temperature have been awarded as the most important weather factors that influence insect behavior. Barometric pressure studies have been relegated to a secondary place mainly because most studies deal with adult insects where temperature and water availability are the main environmental factors that influence behavior. We studied the influence of barometric pressure on the host orientation behavior in Mallophora ruficauda, an ectoparasitoid with an active host-seeking larval stage. Our results show that a steeper decrease in barometric pressure than expected by regular variation reduced orientation to host chemical cues. This study is the first to show a correlation between changes in the barometric pressure and the seeking behavior of parasitoid soil-dwelling larvae. Our results show that in this kind of insects, ambient factors other than temperature, water availability and light, can influence and have a profound impact on the process of parasitism. We discuss the influence of this behavior on a task so important for parasitoids as host location, and highlight the importance of including such information in parasitoid foraging ecology and climatic change studies.
降雨和温度被认为是影响昆虫行为的最重要的气象因素。气压研究已退居次要地位，主要是因为大多数研究都针对成年昆虫，而温度和水分可用性是影响行为的主要环境因素。我们研究了气压对寄生物主动寻找幼虫阶段的红腹寄蝇宿主定位行为的影响。我们的结果表明，气压的下降幅度比预期的正常变化陡峭，这会降低对宿主化学线索的定向。这项研究首次表明，气压变化与寄生性土壤幼虫的寻找行为之间存在相关性。我们的结果表明，在这种昆虫中，除了温度、水分可用性和光照之外的环境因素会影响并深刻影响寄生过程。我们讨论了这种行为对寄生性昆虫寻找宿主这一重要任务的影响，并强调了在寄生性昆虫觅食生态学和气候变化研究中纳入此类信息的重要性。
