Vol. 12, Special Issue 9 (2023)

Author(s):
Rajkumari, Dr. Jayalaxmi Ganguli, Dr. RN Ganguli and Mamta Bhagat

Abstract:
The present studies on tri-trophic interaction included C. cephalonica reared on five different cereal diets viz., maize, sorghum, pearl millet, rice and mixture of grains (maize+ sorghum+ pearl millet) and the direct effect of these diets on the growth, development and reproductive parameters of C. cephalonica and to evaluate its indirect impact on the biology and parasitism of the egg parasitoid, Trichogramma japonicum on the eggs obtained from Corcyra reared on different diets. Results revealed that, T. japonicum exhibited best performance on Corcyra eggs obtained from Corcyra reared on maize, which was found highly significant with respect to per cent parasitization (76.85%) male emergence (71.2%), female emergence (77.65%), male longevity (3.55 days), female longevity (4.7 days), fecundity (90.35%) and sex ratio (1.15). Thus, the obtained results indicated that nutritional content of the host egg can be considered as an important decisive parameter in terms of percentage parasitism, longevity and sex ratio of the emerged parasitoids.