Université Côte d'Azur, INRAE, CNRS, Institut Sophia Agrobiotech, Sophia Antipolis, France.
Université Côte d'Azur, Inria, INRAE, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Biocore, Sophia Antipolis, France.
Sci Rep. 2023 Mar 30;13(1):5200. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-31630-8.
Minute insects such as parasitic micro-wasps have high basic and applied importance for their widespread use as biocontrol agents. Their dispersal is a phenotype of particular interest. Classically, it is evaluated using field releases, but those are time consuming, costly, and their results highly variable, preventing high-throughput and repeatability. Alternatively, dispersal can be studied using small-scale assays, but those neglect important higher-scale processes. Consequently, proper evaluation of dispersal is often complicated or lacking in academic studies and biocontrol breeding programs. Here we introduce a new method, the double-spiral maze, that allows the study of spatial propagation of groups of micro-wasps at relevant scales (several hours and meters), retaining high throughput and experimental power. The method records the location of every individual at every time, enabling accurate estimates of diffusion coefficients or other dispersal metrics. We describe this affordable, scalable, and easy-to-implement method, and illustrate its application with a species of agricultural interest.
微小的昆虫，如寄生性的微小黄蜂，由于其作为生物防治剂的广泛应用而具有很高的基础和应用重要性。它们的扩散是一个特别有趣的表型。传统上，它是通过野外释放来评估的，但这既费时又费钱，而且结果变化很大，无法实现高通量和可重复性。或者，也可以使用小规模的试验来研究扩散，但这些试验忽略了重要的大尺度过程。因此，在学术研究和生物防治育种计划中，对扩散的适当评估通常很复杂或缺乏。在这里，我们介绍了一种新的方法，即双螺旋迷宫，它可以在相关尺度（数小时和数米）上研究微黄蜂群体的空间传播，同时保持高通量和实验能力。该方法记录每个个体在每个时间点的位置，从而能够准确估计扩散系数或其他扩散指标。我们描述了这种经济实惠、可扩展且易于实施的方法，并通过一种具有农业应用价值的物种来说明其应用。
