Encounters With Parasitized Hosts: To Leave or Not To Leave a Patch

ENCOUNTERS WITH PARASITIZED HOSTS: TO LEAVE OR NOT TO LEAVE A PATCH by J.C. VAN LENTEREN (Department of Population Biology, University of Leiden, P.O. Box 9516, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands. Present address: Laboratory of Entomology, Wageningen Agricultural University, P.O. Box 8031, 6700 EH Wageningen, The Netherlands) SUMMARY Several factors determine the amount of foraging time which the parasitoid Leptopilina heterotoma will spend on a patch with hosts, like the composition of the host medium, the age and size of the host patch, the number of searching conspecifics, and the number and quality of host larvae. How encounters with already