Egg Parasitoids of Hemipteran Insects: A Special Account on Scelionidae (Platygastroidea: Hymenoptera)

Abstract

Parasitoids are considered as one of the key biotic factors regulating the population dynamics of other insects in the natural settings. Egg parasitoids have been used successfully for many decades as inundative and augmentative biological control agents against a wide range of economically important agricultural pests. In this review parasitoids in the family Scelionidae, especially those attacking the eggs of hemipteran insects were discussed. Information on six genera of scelionids namely Trissolcus Ashmead, Telenomus Haliday, Gryon Haliday, Idris Förster, Protelenomus Kieffer, Hadronotus Förster and Psix Kozlov as the egg parasitoids of hemipteran insects has been gathered. Among these six genera, several species belonging to Trissolcus Ashmead and Telenomus Haliday have been extensively studied and exploited for the biological control of hemipteran pests.  The main target hosts of these egg parasitoids found to be the heteropteran pests in the families Pentatomidae, Scutelleridae, Urostylididae and Coreidae. Release of these parasitoids have provided successful control of several pests in soybean, cowpea, rice and squash especially for the control of invasive stink bugs. Further, it was found that, the effective utilization of these parasitoids has the greatest potential to manage several agriculturally important pests in the ever-changing agricultural ecosystems where chemical free pest management is the main priority. A small efferent is made to pool the information from the existing literature on the parasitoid species involved and the host insects associated with them to understand their diversity and biocontrol potential.