Pre-patch experience affects the egg distribution pattern in a polyembryonic parasitoid of moth egg batches

According to foraging theory, female parasitoids should alter their host ch oice in response to cues that indicate a limitation of resources. We tested whether females of the polyembryonic parasitoid Ageniaspis fuscicollis (Hy menoptera: Encyrtidae), which attack egg batches of small ermine moths (Lep idoptera: Yponomeutidae), would alter their host acceptance pattern in resp onse to different pre-patch experience. We kept females of the parasitoid p rior to a patch visit under different conditions, which should indicate dif ferent levels of competition for hosts. With increased competition as pre-p atch experience, females laid more eggs per host egg and self-superparasiti zed more often, and the resultant egg distributions showed a trend from mor e regular distributions to increasingly Poisson and aggregated distribution s. Consequently, females with a pre-patch experience that would indicate lo w competition for hosts had the most even egg distributions. We conclude th at pre-patch experience of competitors may lead to a significant change of mutual interference patterns in egg-laying A. fuscicollis wasps.