Symbiont-conferred resistance to parasitoids in aphids – Challenges for biological control

Parasitoid wasps are frequently employed to control pest aphids in greenhouse crops. However, aphids can be infected with heritable bacterial endosymbionts that strongly increase their resistance to parasitoid wasps. These defensive symbionts have the potential to compromise the effectiveness of biological control. Unfortunately, we still lack the necessary studies to assess their effects at the scale of greenhouses, but laboratory experiments...