Data from: Traits across trophic levels interact to influence parasitoid establishment in biological control releases

A central goal in ecology is to predict what governs a species’ ability to
establish in a new environment. One mechanism driving establishment
success is individual species’ traits, but the role of trait combinations
among interacting species across different trophic levels are less clear.
Deliberate or accidental species additions to existing communities provide
opportunities to study larger scale patterns of establishment success.
Biological control introductions are especially valuable because they
contain data on both the successfully established and unestablished
species. Here, we supplemented a recent dataset of importation biological
control introductions with life-history traits for the parasitoid species
and the herbivorus hosts they were released to control to explore how
life-history traits of 132 parasitoid species and their herbivorous hosts
interact to affect parasitoid establishment. We find that of five
parasitoid and herbivore traits investigated, one parasitoid trait—host
range—weakly predicts parasitoid establishment; parasitoids with higher
levels of phylogenetic specialization have higher establishment success,
though the effect is marginal. In addition, parasitoids are more likely to
establish when their herbivore host has had a shorter residence time.
Interestingly, we do not corroborate earlier findings that gregarious
parasitoids and endo-parasitoids are more likely to establish. Most
importantly, we find that life-history traits of the parasitoid species
and their hosts can interact to influence establishment. Specifically,
parasitoids with broader host ranges are more likely to establish when the
herbivore they have been released to control is also more of a generalist.
These results provide insight into how multiple species’ traits and their
interactions, both within and across trophic levels, can influence
establishment of species of higher trophic levels.