Review of Apanteles sensu stricto (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Microgastrinae) from Area de Conservación Guanacaste, northwestern Costa Rica, with keys to all described species from Mesoamerica.

More than half a million specimens of wild-caught Lepidoptera caterpillars have been reared for their parasitoids, identified, and DNA barcoded over a period of 34 years (and ongoing) from Area de Conservación de Guanacaste (ACG), northwestern Costa Rica. This provides the world's best location-based dataset for studying the taxonomy and host relationships of caterpillar parasitoids. Among Hymenoptera, Microgastrinae (Braconidae) is the most diverse and commonly encountered parasitoid subfamily, with many hundreds of species delineated to date, almost all undescribed.

Utility of the DNA barcoding gene fragment for parasitic wasp phylogeny (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonoidea): data release and new measure of taxonomic congruence.

The enormous cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) sequence database being assembled from the various DNA barcoding projects as well as from independent phylogenetic studies constitutes an almost unprecedented amount of data for molecular systematics, in addition to its role in species identification and discovery. As part of a study of the potential of this gene fragment to improve the accuracy of phylogenetic reconstructions, and in particular, exploring the effects of dense taxon sampling, we have assembled a data set for the hyperdiverse, cosmopolitan parasitic wasp superfamily Ichneumonoidea, including the release of 1793 unpublished sequences. Of approximately 84 currently recognized Ichneumonoidea subfamilies, 2500 genera and 41,000 described species, barcoding 5'-COI data were assembled for 4168 putative species-level terminals (many undescribed), representing 671 genera and all but ten of the currently recognized subfamilies.

Reared microgastrine wasps (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) from Yanayacu Biological Station and environs (Napo Province, Ecuador): diversity and host specialization.

The microgastrine braconid wasps recovered up through 2007 by the NSF-sponsored rearing project "Caterpillars and Parasitoids of the Eastern Andes in Ecuador" are summarized in terms of their host specialization and faunistic uniqueness. Two hundred fifty eight rearings of caterpillars resulted in records of Microgastrinae, distributed among 14 genera (Apanteles Förster, Choeras Mason, Cotesia Cameron, Diolcogaster Ashmead, Distatrix Mason, Dolichogenidea Viereck, Exix Mason, Glyptapanteles Ashmead, Hypomicrogaster Ashmead, Papanteles Mason, Parapanteles Ashmead, Protapanteles Ashmead, Sathon Mason and Venanus Mason). Eleven records of hyperparasitoids of Microgastrinae are also summarized; Mesochorus Gravenhorst (Ichneumonidae) and Perilampidae are both recorded.

Integration of DNA barcoding into an ongoing inventory of complex tropical biodiversity.

Inventory of the caterpillars, their food plants and parasitoids began in 1978 for today's Area de Conservacion Guanacaste (ACG), in northwestern Costa Rica. This complex mosaic of 120 000 ha of conserved and regenerating dry, cloud and rain forest over 0-2000 m elevation contains at least 10 000 species of non-leaf-mining caterpillars used by more than 5000 species of parasitoids. Several hundred thousand specimens of ACG-reared adult Lepidoptera and parasitoids have been intensively and extensively studied morphologically by many taxonomists, including most of the co-authors.

Extreme diversity of tropical parasitoid wasps exposed by iterative integration of natural history, DNA barcoding, morphology, and collections.

We DNA barcoded 2,597 parasitoid wasps belonging to 6 microgastrine braconid genera reared from parapatric tropical dry forest, cloud forest, and rain forest in Area de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG) in northwestern Costa Rica and combined these data with records of caterpillar hosts and morphological analyses. We asked whether barcoding and morphology discover the same provisional species and whether the biological entities revealed by our analysis are congruent with wasp host specificity. Morphological analysis revealed 171 provisional species, but barcoding exposed an additional 142 provisional species; 95% of the total is likely to be undescribed.