We are designing a Y-tube assay involving a parasitoid wasp. So far, the wasps do not seem to be too responsive to the stimulus. What are some factors that could improve the assay?
If you're testing the response of parasitoid to host insect, then the insect must be feeding on a plant tissue. Cues from both the damaged plant tissue and frass from feeding insect can provide multitudinous stimuli to attract parasitoid. That's my take on the question.
Its very difficult to say which are the important factors. Depends a lot of the specific plant, the volatile compounds in its leaves and, of those, the specific compounds the wasps are responding to.
Below is a study that covers a lot of this. I read part of it and thought it only generally related to you question.
In the intro it says, "has revealed that the olfactory sensilla of parasitoids only responds to a limited number of the compounds released by insect-damaged plants thereby substantially reducing the number of compounds that require testing." - I'll let you decide if its helpful
Electrophysiological and Behavioral Responses of a Parasitic Wasp to Plant Volatiles Induced by Two Leaf Miner Species
Link...
https://academic.oup.com/chemse/article/31/5/467/398727
Dear colleague,
Unfortunately I do not know.
All best wishes for your continuing successes,
Prof. Otar Shainidze
Dear Rose,
Normally, parasitoids can attracted by the host volatile compounds and the composition of the blends used by the parasitoids to distinguish the location of the insect pests. So you can use the olfactory response to semiochemicals from the host - plant in parasitoid wasps.
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