Encarsia perniciosi

Encarsia perniciosi is a tiny parasitic wasp, a parasitoid of the California red scale (Aonidiella aurantii) and the San Jose scale (Quadraspidiotus perniciosus) on citrus in California.[1]

Encarsia perniciosi
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Family: Aphelinidae
Subfamily: Coccophaginae
Genus: Encarsia
Species:
E. perniciosi
Binomial name
Encarsia perniciosi
(Tower, 1913)

Description

Encarsia perniciosi is a tiny dark-coloured wasp, rather smaller than Comperiella bifasciata, another parasitoid of scale insects. E. perniciosi is common near the coast in California, and used to be present in citrus groves inland until the introduction of Aphytis melinus. The two co-exist in coastal areas but not inland, a fact that has not yet been explained.[2]

Life cycle

Encarsia perniciosi is an endoparasite, the female inserting its ovipositor into a scale, either male or female, and laying an egg inside. It can use any scale stage but prefers to use second instars. The wasp larva matures rapidly and pupates inside the body of its host. On emerging from the pupa, it chews through the scale test, leaving behind a mummified second or third instar scale.[3]

On the California red scale, this wasp is thelytokous, with female offspring being produced from unfertilised eggs. On the San Jose scale however, though some females reproduce by thelytoky, other strains are arrhenotokous, with males being produced from unfertilised eggs. The males are secondary parasitoids, developing inside other Encarsia larvae, usually female, or in the larvae of other species. Research in the laboratory shows that arrhenotokous males will not mate with thelytokous females. There have been reports in the literature of the arrhenotokous form becoming thelytokous when kept under constant conditions of temperature, but the researchers in this study did not find this to be the case, and maintained arrhenotokous strains for as many as 19 generations.[1]

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gollark: That takes lots of RF. We only have a single RTG, solar panel, and tree oil setup (which can do 120RF/t *peak*, but probably only 20 sustained).
gollark: We don't have Mekanism, but I assume you mean "automining in general".

References
  1. Stouthamer, Richard; Luck, Robert F. (1991). "Transition from Bisexual to Unisexual Cultures in Encarsia perniciosi (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae): New Data and a Reinterpretation". Annals of the Entomological Society of America. 84 (2): 150–157. doi:10.1093/aesa/84.2.150.
  2. Yu, D.S.; Luck, R.F.; Murdoch, W.W. (1990). "Competition, resource partitioning and coexistence of an endoparasitoid Encarsia perniciosi and an ectoparasitoid Aphytis melinus of the California red scale". Ecological Entomology. 15 (4): 469–480. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2311.1990.tb00830.x.
  3. Dreistadt, Steve H. (2012). Integrated Pest Management for Citrus, Third Edition. University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. p. 103. ISBN 978-1-60107-696-0.
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