Current Understanding and Future Prospects of Host Selection, Acceptance, Discrimination, and Regulation of Phorid Fly Parasitoids That Attack Ants

Abstract EN

Phorid fly parasitoids (Diptera: Phoridae) have evolved a diverse array of cues used to successfully parasitize their ant hosts.

Successful parasitism often involves (a) host habitat location, (b) host location, (c) host acceptance, (d) host discrimination, and (e) host regulation.

In this paper we discuss our current understanding of how phorid flies use each of these steps to successfully parasitize ant hosts.

We examine the wide variety of strategies and cues used by a multiple species of phorid flies within three separate genera that most commonly parasitize ants (Apocephalus, Pseudacteon, and Neodohrniphora) and discuss future directions within this field of study.