Aximopsis masneri (Chalcidoidea: Eurytomidae), a parasitoid of Euglossa bees (Apidae: Euglossini): life-history traits and experience of rearing in captivity on Melipona larvae (Apidae: Meliponini)
2021
de Azevedo Werneck, Hugo | de Oliveira Campos, Lucio Antonio
In the present study, we provide data on the biology of Aximopsis masneri, a parasitoid of Euglossa townsendi. We found a nest of E. townsendi built into a knife sheath, in Viçosa/MG/Brazil. The Euglossa nests are difficult to find and maintain in the laboratory, to solve this problem, we used closed brood cells containing prepupa of the stingless bee Melipona quadrifasciata as hosts. The brood cells of M. quadrifasciata are easy to obtain and handle, which allowed us to rear the parasitoids for more than one generation. Here, we provided information on the oviposition behavior, average survival time of each generation, and sex ratio. Therefore, we suggest that M. quadrifasciata can be used as host species for studies on the biology of parasitoids of solitary bees.
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