Assessing native parasitoids of the invasive pest Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae) in the Southeastern USA.

Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura) (Diptera: Drosophilidae), commonly known as spotted-wing Drosophila (SWD), is an invasive insect pest threatening the economy of many small fruit farms in the Americas and Europe. Biological control using parasitoids is a promising strategy for improving the sustainable management of SWD. To use the parasitoids as biocontrol agents, recognizing and understanding the presence and preference of North American native parasitoids and their local adaptation is necessary.

Key to the North American tribes and genera of herb, rose, bramble, and inquiline gall wasps (Hymenoptera, Cynipoidea, Cynipidae).

Robust keys exist for the family-level groups of Cynipoidea. However, for most regions of the world, keys to genera are not available. To address this gap as it applies to North America, a fully illustrated key is provided to facilitate identification of the tribes and genera of rose gall, herb gall, and inquiline gall wasps known from the region.

Enhancing DNA barcode reference libraries by harvesting terrestrial arthropods at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

The use of DNA barcoding has revolutionised biodiversity science, but its application depends on the existence of comprehensive and reliable reference libraries. For many poorly known taxa, such reference sequences are missing even at higher-level taxonomic scales. We harvested the collections of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History (USNM) to generate DNA barcoding sequences for genera of terrestrial arthropods previously not recorded in one or more major public sequence databases.

Key innovations and the diversification of Hymenoptera.

The order Hymenoptera (wasps, ants, sawflies, and bees) represents one of the most diverse animal lineages, but whether specific key innovations have contributed to its diversification is still unknown. We assembled the largest time-calibrated phylogeny of Hymenoptera to date and investigated the origin and possible correlation of particular morphological and behavioral innovations with diversification in the order: the wasp waist of Apocrita; the stinger of Aculeata; parasitoidism, a specialized form of carnivory; and secondary phytophagy, a reversal to plant-feeding. Here, we show that parasitoidism has been the dominant strategy since the Late Triassic in Hymenoptera, but was not an immediate driver of diversification.

Metabarcoding and applied ecology with hyperdiverse organisms: Recommendations for biological control research.

Metabarcoding is revolutionizing fundamental research in ecology by enabling large-scale detection of species and producing data that are rich with community context. However, the benefits of metabarcoding have yet to be fully realized in fields of applied ecology, especially those such as classical biological control (CBC) research that involve hyperdiverse taxa. Here, we discuss some of the opportunities that metabarcoding provides CBC and solutions to the main methodological challenges that have limited the integration of metabarcoding in existing CBC workflows.

Hymenopteran Parasitoids of Leucotaraxis argenticollis (Diptera: Chamaemyiidae) and Leucotaraxis piniperda: Implications for Biological Control of Hemlock Woolly Adelgid (Hemiptera: Adelgidae).

The hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae (Annand)) is a serious invasive pest of hemlock trees in eastern North America. Multiple biological control agents have been the focus of research aimed at pest management and conserving hemlock communities. Three promising A.

Methods for Rearing the Parasitoid Ganaspis brasiliensis, a Promising Biological Control Agent for the Invasive Drosophila suzukii.

Native to East Asia, the spotted-wing drosophila, Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura) (Diptera: Drosophilidae), has established widely in the Americas, Europe, and parts of Africa over the last decade, becoming a devastating pest of various soft-skinned fruits in its invaded regions. Biological control, especially by means of self-perpetuating and specialized parasitoids, is expected to be a viable option for sustainable area-wide management of this highly mobile and polyphagous pest. Ganaspis brasiliensis Ihering (Hymenoptera: Figitidae) is a larval parasitoid that is widely distributed in East Asia, and has been found to be one of the most effective parasitoids of D.

Adventive Larval Parasitoids Reconstruct Their Close Association with Spotted-Wing Drosophila in the Invaded North American Range.

Two species of larval parasitoids of the globally invasive fruit pest, Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae), Leptopilina japonica, and Ganaspis brasiliensis (both Hymenoptera: Figitidae), were detected in British Columbia, Canada in 2016 and 2019, respectively. Both are presumed to have been unintentionally introduced from Asia; however, the extent of their establishment across different habitats with diverse host plants used by D. suzukii was unclear.

A Coordinated Sampling and Identification Methodology for Larval Parasitoids of Spotted-Wing Drosophila.

We provide recommendations for sampling and identification of introduced larval parasitoids of spotted-wing drosophila, Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura) (Diptera: Drosophilidae). These parasitoids are either under consideration for importation (aka classical) biological control introductions, or their adventive (presumed to have been accidentally introduced) populations have recently been discovered in North America and Europe. Within the context of the ecology of D.

First Record and Distribution of Ganaspis brasiliensis (Hymenoptera: Figitidae: Eucoilinae), a Parasitoid of Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae) in Argentina.

The eucoiline species Ganaspis brasiliensis (von Ihering) (Hymenoptera: Figitidae) is recorded for the first time in Argentina, with confirmation of parasitism of Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura) infesting healthy raspberry fruit (Rubus idaeus L. cv. "Heritage") still on the plant.

DROP: Molecular voucher database for identification of Drosophila parasitoids.

Molecular identification is increasingly used to speed up biodiversity surveys and laboratory experiments. However, many groups of organisms cannot be reliably identified using standard databases such as GenBank or BOLD due to lack of sequenced voucher specimens identified by experts. Sometimes a large number of sequences are available, but with too many errors to allow identification.

Deployment of Aggregation-Sex Pheromones of Longhorned Beetles (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) Facilitates the Discovery and Identification of their Parasitoids.

Longhorned beetles (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) include many species that are among the most damaging pests of managed and natural forest ecosystems worldwide. Many species of cerambycids use volatile chemical signals (i.e.

Comprehensive phylogenomic analyses re-write the evolution of parasitism within cynipoid wasps.

Background: Parasitoidism, a specialized life strategy in which a parasite eventually kills its host, is frequently found within the insect order Hymenoptera (wasps, ants and bees). A parasitoid lifestyle is one of two dominant life strategies within the hymenopteran superfamily Cynipoidea, with the other being an unusual plant-feeding behavior known as galling. Less commonly, cynipoid wasps exhibit inquilinism, a strategy where some species have adapted to usurp other species' galls instead of inducing their own.

UCE data reveal multiple origins of rose gallers in North America: Global phylogeny of Diplolepis Geoffroy (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae).

Gall wasps in the genus Diplolepis Geoffroy are specialized herbivores that induce galls exclusively on roses. Despite their wide distribution across the Holarctic, little is known about their evolutionary history. Here we present the first phylogenomic tree of global Diplolepis reconstructed using Ultraconserved Elements (UCEs), resulting in a robust phylogeny based on 757 genes.

Geographic and Seasonal Variation in Species Diversity and Community Composition of Frugivorous Drosophila (Diptera: Drosophilidae) and their Leptopilina (Hymenoptera: Figitidae) Parasitoids.

Many studies have investigated species diversity patterns across space and time, but few have explored patterns of coexistence of tightly interacting species. We documented species diversity patterns in a host-parasitoid system across broad geographic location and seasons. We calculated species diversity (H and eH   ') and compared the relationship between community similarity and geographic distances of frugivorous Drosophila host (Diptera: Drosophilidae) and Leptopilina parasitoid (Hymenoptera: Figitidae) communities across Eastern North America, from New Hampshire to Florida, at two time points during the breeding season.

The parasitoid complex of D. suzukii and other fruit feeding Drosophila species in Asia.

Drosophila suzukii is an invasive fly of East Asian origin that has become a serious fruit pest worldwide. Classical biological control through the introduction of parasitoids from Asia could help reduce populations of D. suzukii in invaded regions.

Phylogenomic Insights into the Evolution of Stinging Wasps and the Origins of Ants and Bees.

The stinging wasps (Hymenoptera: Aculeata) are an extremely diverse lineage of hymenopteran insects, encompassing over 70,000 described species and a diversity of life history traits, including ectoparasitism, cleptoparasitism, predation, pollen feeding (bees [Anthophila] and Masarinae), and eusociality (social vespid wasps, ants, and some bees) [1]. The most well-studied lineages of Aculeata are the ants, which are ecologically dominant in most terrestrial ecosystems [2], and the bees, the most important lineage of angiosperm-pollinating insects [3]. Establishing the phylogenetic affinities of ants and bees helps us understand and reconstruct patterns of social evolution as well as fully appreciate the biological implications of the switch from carnivory to pollen feeding (pollenivory).

A Scalable and Modular Dome Illumination System for Scientific Microphotography on a Budget.

A scalable and modular LED illumination dome for microscopic scientific photography is described and illustrated, and methods for constructing such a dome are detailed. Dome illumination for insect specimens has become standard practice across the field of insect systematics, but many dome designs remain expensive and inflexible with respect to new LED technology. Further, a one-size-fits-all dome cannot accommodate the large breadth of insect size encountered in nature, forcing the photographer to adapt, in some cases, to a less than ideal dome design.

Leaf beetles are ant-nest beetles: the curious life of the juvenile stages of case-bearers (Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae, Cryptocephalinae).

Although some species of Cryptocephalinae (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) have been documented with ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) for almost 200 years, information on this association is fragmentary. This contribution synthesizes extant literature and analysizes the data for biological patterns. Myrmecophily is more common in the tribe Clytrini than in Cryptocephalini, but not documented for Fulcidacini or the closely-related Lamprosomatinae.

Impact of the Egg Parasitoid, Gryon pennsylvanicum (Hymenoptera: Scelionidae), on Sentinel and Wild Egg Masses of the Squash Bug (Hemiptera: Coreidae) in Maryland.

Seasonal changes in egg parasitism and predation rates on sentinel (laboratory-reared) and wild (naturally occurring) egg masses of the squash bug, Anasa tristis (De Geer), were evaluated in squash fields in Maryland from June through September in 2013 and 2014. Rates of egg parasitism were significantly higher on wild egg masses than on sentinel egg masses. Squash bug nymphal emergence was significantly higher on sentinel egg masses than on wild egg masses.

Phylogeny, evolution and classification of gall wasps: the plot thickens.

Gall wasps (Cynipidae) represent the most spectacular radiation of gall-inducing insects. In addition to true gall formers, gall wasps also include phytophagous inquilines, which live inside the galls induced by gall wasps or other insects. Here we present the first comprehensive molecular and total-evidence analyses of higher-level gall wasp relationships.

Afrotropical cynipoidea (hymenoptera).

The Afrotropical Cynipoidea are represented by 306 described species and 54 genera in four families: Cynipidae, Figitidae, Liopteridae and Ibaliidae, the latter represented by a single introduced species. Seven of these genera are only represented by undescribed species in the region. Seven new genus-level synonymies, one genus resurrected from synonymy, 54 new combinations, one combination reinstated, and one new replacement name are presented.

Review of Afrotropical Figitinae (Figitidae, Cynipoidea, Hymenoptera) with the first records of Neralsia and Lonchidia for the region.

The cynipoid subfamily Figitinae is poorly represented in the Afrotropical region with two genera (Figites Latreille and Xyalophora Kieffer) and six species currently known. Here we record an additional two genera (Neralsia Cameron and Lonchidia Thomson) for the region and describe three new species: Neralsiahaddocki sp. n.