May predator body-size hamper furtive predation strategy by aphidophagous insects?
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Furtive predation is an uncommon predation strategy within aphidophagous insects, as it can be constrained by several factors. So far, the few reported furtive predators are characterized by their small body-size, vermiform shape, and slow movement. They live within the aphid colonies, without triggering significant defensive acts, nor disrupting colony structure. In this study, we aim to determine how body-size may prevent adoption of a furtive predation strategy. For that, the American hoverfly, Eupeodes americanus (Wiedemann) (Diptera: Syrphidae) was selected as a model species, according to the great body-size increase experienced during the larval stage. We hypothesized that smaller instars will be furtive predators, whereas larger ones will be active-searching predators. After the inoculation close to a pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum (Harris) (Hemiptera: Aphididae) colony, several behavioral parameters of the different larval instars were recorded. The elicited aphid colony disturbance was also evaluated and compared with that of the active-searching ladybird beetle, Harmonia axyridis (Pallas) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae), and of the furtive predator, Aphidoletes aphidimyza (Rondani) (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae). Aphids showed significantly fewer defensive behaviors in the presence of E. americanus larvae than in the presence of the active-searching H. axyridis. Furthermore, our results clearly indicate that body-size increase was not a limit, since the three larval instars of the American hoverfly acted as furtive predators, just like the furtive A. aphidimyza. It is the first time a furtive predatory behavior has been recorded on such a large aphidophagous predator. The obtained results provide essential information about the biology of E. americanus, a potential biological control agent of aphids.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".