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The impact of exotic parasitoids on populations of a native Hawaiian moth assessed using life table studies

  • Population Ecology - Original Paper
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Abstract

The impact of alien species on native organisms is a cause for concern worldwide, with biological invasions commonplace today. Suppression efforts targeting many invasive species have included introductions of biological control agents. The numerous releases of biological control agents in the Hawaiian archipelago have resulted in considerable concern for non-target impacts, due to high levels of non-target parasitism observed to occur in some cases. This study investigated the impact of introduced Hymenoptera parasitoids on a Hawaiian moth. The endemic Hawaiian moth Udea stellata (Butler) has seven alien parasitoids associated with it, two purposely introduced, three adventive, and two of uncertain origin. The objective of this study was to determine the relative contribution of the seven parasitoid species to the population dynamics of U. stellata by constructing partial life tables. Marginal attack rates and associated k-values were calculated to allow comparison of mortality factors between experimental sites. Sentinel larvae were deployed on potted host plants and left in the field for 3-day intervals in open and exclusion treatments. The factors that contributed to total mortality in the open treatment were: disappearance (42.1%), death due to unknown reasons during rearing (16.5%) and parasitism (4.9%). The open treatment incurred significantly higher larval disappearance compared to the exclusion treatment (7.8%), which suggests that in large part disappearance is the result of predation. Adventive parasitoids inflicted greater total larval mortality attributable to parasitism (97.0%) than purposely introduced species (3.0%).

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the USDA-TSTAR grant program for funding. The Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Nature Conservancy of Hawaii are thanked for facilitating collection permits and access to field sites. Peter Follett and Tracy Johnson are thanked for reviewing an earlier version of the manuscript. Roy Van Driesche is thanked for advice on life table analysis. Numerous field assistants are thanked for their help in field collections, as well as Clesson Higashi and Sasha Grant for helping to rear the larvae and growing the plants used in this study.

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  1. Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

    Leyla V. Kaufman & Mark G. Wright

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  1. Leyla V. Kaufman
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  2. Mark G. Wright
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Correspondence to Leyla V. Kaufman.

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Communicated by Thomas Hoffmeister.

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Kaufman, L.V., Wright, M.G. The impact of exotic parasitoids on populations of a native Hawaiian moth assessed using life table studies. Oecologia 159, 295–304 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-008-1226-4

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