RESEARCH ARTICLE Falling Victim to Wasps in the Air: A Fate Driven by Prey Flight Morphology? Yolanda Ballesteros1*, Carlo Polidori2,3, José Tormos1, Laura Baños-Picón1, Josep D. Asís1 1 Área de Zoología, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain, 2 Instituto de Ciencias Ambientales (ICAM), Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Avenida Carlos III, s/n, E-45071, Toledo, Spain, 3 Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM), Departamento de Biologia Animal, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, C2-P3 Campo Grande, 1749–016, Lisboa, Portugal a11111 *
[email protected] Abstract In prey-predator systems where the interacting individuals are both fliers, the flight perfor- mance of both participants heavily influences the probability of success of the predator (the OPEN ACCESS prey is captured) and of the prey (the predator is avoided). While the flight morphology (an Citation: Ballesteros Y, Polidori C, Tormos J, Baños- estimate of flight performance) of predatory wasps has rarely been addressed as a factor Picón L, Asís JD (2016) Falling Victim to Wasps in that may contribute to explain prey use, how the flight morphology of potential prey influ- the Air: A Fate Driven by Prey Flight Morphology? PLoS ONE 11(4): e0152256. doi:10.1371/journal. ences the output of predator-prey encounters has not been studied. Here, we hypothesized pone.0152256 that flight morphology associated with flight ability (flight muscle mass to body mass ratio Editor: Robert B. Srygley, USDA-Agricultural (FMR) and body mass to wing area ratio (wing loading, WL)) of Diptera affect their probability Research Service, UNITED STATES of being captured by specialized Diptera-hunting wasps (Bembix merceti and B.