LAUSR

Telenomus dignus is an important egg parasitoid of sugarcane stem borers in China. Parasitism characteristics of T. dignus were studied by the methods of its functional response and the laboratory population life table. Results showed that the parasitism capacity of T. dignus on Chilo sacchariphagus showed a functional response of Holling II model. The maximum parasitism capacity was 66.23 eggs per female at the first day. The searching efficiency was 1.0917. The processing time was 0.0151, and the correlation coefficient was 0.9041, significant. The population life table of T. dignus was established in laboratory. The average life span of females was 6.9 days, which ranged from 3 to 13 days. The number of parasitized eggs on the first day of emergence accounted for about 33% of total number of eggs laid in a lifetime, while it reached approximately 60% in the first three days. The net fecundity and the average number of parasitized eggs were 42.35 and 77.9 per female, respectively. As the dominant natural enemy, T. dignus proved to be a remarkable egg parasitoid of C. sacchariphagus, providing a basis for using T. dignus to control C. sacchariphagus in sugarcane areas.