Egg limitation in host-parasitoid dynamics: an individual-based perspective

Abstract

Theoretical models of parasitoid-host dynamics predict that egg limitation in parasitoids destabilizes community dynamics. However, although egg limitation is experienced by individual parasitoids with variable success of encountering hosts, such details were neglected in previous models. This study developed an individual-based parasitoid-host model that explicitly incorporates egg limitation and host encounters of individual parasitoids. The model indicates that the combination of egg limitation and variation in the success of encountering hosts stabilizes parasitoid-host dynamics. The stabilizing mechanism emerges from Jensen’s inequality because egg limitation makes the number of offspring inherently concave down in the number of encountered hosts. Reasons for the inconsistent predictions of the effect of egg limitation between the current model and previous models are discussed.