Host egg volatiles are involved in brood parasitism in predatory mites

Recently, we reported brood parasitism in the tiny predatory mite Neoseiulus californicus (Acari: Phytoseiidae); adult females of this species prefer to add their eggs to a cluster of eggs of another predatory mite species, Gynaeseius liturivorus (Acari: Phytoseiidae), which guards its own eggs against egg predators.
Here, we investigated the cues used by the blind N. californicus to detect eggs of G. liturivorus.
We show that N. californicus locates oviposition sites of G. liturivorus using volatiles emanating from eggs of the latter species.
Adult female G. liturivorus spent more time guarding oviposition sites that contain more eggs, which resulted in a higher per capita survival of the eggs. We therefore hypothesized that N. californicus would prefer oviposition sites with more G. liturivorus eggs.
Indeed, N. californicus preferably laid their egg at oviposition sites containing more than six G. liturivorus eggs, which corresponds to the average number laid by a female G. liturivoru..., , , 1\. **Title of dataset**: Data from: Host egg volatiles are involved in brood parasitism in predatory mites

2\. **Author information**:

**Corresponding author**

Name: Yasuyuki Choh

Institutuion: Chiba University

email: [[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])

**Co-author 1**

Name: Arne Janssen

Institution: University of Amsterdam

3\. **Date of data collection**: April-October 2022

4\. **File list**

Brood parasitism cues data

5\. **Sharing/access information**

Links to publications that cite or use the data:

Choh, Y., Janssen, A. \"Host egg volatiles are involved in brood parasitism in predatory mites\" Ecological Entomology. [https://doi.org/10.1111/een.13376](https://doi.org/10.1111/een.13376)

6\. **File overview**

Each data sheet is associated with data in the above paper.

Data on residence time of hosts on oviposition sites and predation on host eggs by thrips larvae are shown in the sheets residence time and egg predation respectively.

**Data Sheet o...