Abstract
The reproductive success of a foraging parasitoid may be
limited by the number of eggs that she produces and/or the number of
hosts that she can locate. Despite the significance for population
dynamics and numerous areas of behavioural ecology, the relative
importance of these factors remains an issue of contention. Attempts
to resolve this controversy have been hindered because estimating
the importance of factors limiting reproduction in the field can be
extremely laborious and time consuming. We show how sex ratio data can be
used as a relatively easy method to indirectly estimate the relative
importance of the factors limiting reproduction. Sex ratio data from 48
samples of eight species suggest that: (a) the extent of host or egg
limitation in a species varies between site collected and time of year;
and (b) on average, species are at an intermediate position on the
egg/host limitation continuum, with a bias towards host limitation.
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