| The courtship and searching behavior, reproductive biology, and life-history tactics of Leptopilina boulardi were examined. The patterns of progeny production and host utilization that emerged, regardless of host species, suggest a highly plastic reproductive strategy that affords maximal opportunity for parasitism when hosts are patchily distributed, yet allows for opportunistic exploitation when hosts are abundant. This species' reproductive tactics fit well into theory regarding reproductive plasticity as an adaptive strategy. |
