Bad housekeeping: why do aphids leave their exuviae inside the colony?

摘要

BackgroundAnimals can gain protection against predators and parasites by living in groups. The encounter-dilution effect provides protection when the probability of detection of a group does not increase in proportion to group size (i.e. encounter effect), so that predators do not offset the encounter effect by attacking more members of the group (i.e. dilution effect). In this paper, we propose a novel mechanism by which prey insects could gain by producing decoys that act as multiple targets for predators or parasitoids if these decoys are recognised as preys or hosts and negatively affect the patch foraging strategy of these predators and parasitoids. Such a decoy mechanism could be present in aphid colonies in which aphid exuviae are recognised and attacked by Aphidiine wasps.