Development and Competition of Three Parasitoid Wasps, , and , in Their Host, , in Single and Mixed Infections.

Laboratory trials were carried out to investigate the development of three entomophagous parasitoid wasps in preimaginal stages of in monoinfections and mixed infections. Laboratory-raised postfeeding third-stage larvae were exposed to . After pupation, 50 of these fly puparia were brought in contact with pupal parasitoid and 50 with , and the remaining 50 puparia were left as monoinfection. In three further trials, each set of 50 freshly pupated host puparia from the same source was exposed to and , as monoinfections and mixed infections, respectively. The uninfected control group consisted of 50 larvae that were kept separately under the same conditions. The percentages of successfully developed and in monoinfections were 56 and 86%, respectively, and progeny of hatched from 88% of the exposed host puparia. In mixed infections, dominated over and with rates of successfully infected hosts of 50 and 94%, respectively. The number of progeny in these groups ranged from 4 to 49 and 5 to 43, respectively. did not develop in the simultaneous infection with . Not a single eclosed in the six experimental groups, while in the uninfected control group, 46 (92%) adult flies eclosed 11 to 14 days after the start of pupation. Since the three parasitoids emerge from flesh fly pupae, these insects can become important in criminal forensic investigations when corpses are in an advanced stage of decay. More data on their preimaginal development at different temperatures are necessary.