Acerophagus papayae Noyes and Schauff (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea: Encyrtidae), an introduced solitary koinobiont endoparasitoid is considered as one of the efficient parasitoids for the suppression of Papaya mealybug (Muniappan et al., 2006). Disruption of microbial symbiosis demanded by insect pest and symbionts-mediated manipulation of insect pest traits are the two emerging trends in insect pest control. The present study was aimed to understand the parasitic potential, emergence rate and development time of parasitoid A. papayae against P. marginatus reared on four host plants viz., papaya (Carica papaya L.), mulberry (Morus alba L.), brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) and tapioca (Manihot esculenta Crantz). Results revealed that invariable of the host plants, both per cent parasitization and per cent emergence were maximum in aposymbiotic ones than in endosymbiotic mealybugs. And also the parasitoids takes longer time to emerge as an adult from aposymbiotic population whereas, from endosymbiotic mealybugs comparatively it emerges soon. Yet, further study on the assessment of parasitoid fitness over several generations and simultaneous metagenomic analysis of changes in the endosymbiotic profile of mealybugs over generation after antibiotic treatment will help to explain the degree to which the essential endosymbiont adds to the accomplishment of parasitism in papaya mealybugs.
