You should read this paper because……

Important parasitoids of grain aphid pests

Aphids are significant pests across all grain crops, but their impact can be reduced by parasitoid wasps which lay their eggs inside the aphids, eventually killing them as their offspirng develop. Samantha Ward, a PhD student at the University of Melbourne has been surveying and experimenting with these parastioids for the past 4 years. Her comprehensive data set has shown us that the parasitoids found on the edges of canola fields are very different to those attacking aphids within the canola field itself. Whereas for wheat fields there is a higher degree of similarity between the species active on the edge and those attacking aphids in the wheat crop. Therefore, management of vegetation around the edges of fields may in some cases help conserve these important natural enemy species.