# Nasonia vitripennis males exhibit greater effort and competency in detecting hosts with conspecific females than other Nasonia males

## TL;DR

Nasonia vitripennis males are better at finding hosts with their own species' females compared to other Nasonia males.

## Contribution

This study reveals interspecific variation in conspecific-mate searching behavior among Nasonia species.

## Key findings

- N. vitripennis males show greater effort in detecting hosts with conspecific females.
- N. longicornis males can distinguish conspecific hosts only against N. oneida.
- CHC profiles of hosts and females influence male mate-searching behavior.

## Abstract

Nasonia is a species complex of four parasitoid wasps. N. vitripennis is cosmopolitan, while the other three species are micro-sympatric with it. This distribution can select distinct species-specific mate recognition capabilities. However, whether Nasonia males can distinguish between hosts with conspecific females and those with heterospecific females is not known. Therefore, we test this hypothesis in a cafeteria-based choice assay and show that N. vitripennis males can distinguish hosts with conspecific wasps against those parasitized by N. giraulti and N. oneida, exhibiting longer search time and distance traversed with faster search speed. We also found that N. longicornis males can distinguish hosts with conspecific wasps, but only against the hosts parasitized by N. oneida. We further investigated the pairwise differences in the cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) profiles of the parasitized hosts and adult female wasps. The results reveal that males show this ability only when the compounds responsible for differences in adult female CHC profiles are also the key differentiators of the host CHC profiles. The comparative mate searching behaviour of males of all reported species within a genus has rarely been studied. Therefore, this study makes a significant contribution to our understanding of interspecific variation of conspecific-mate searching behaviour.