Helmuth Aguirre

Meteorus Haliday (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) parasitoids of Pyralidae: description and biology of two new species and first record of Meteorus desmiae Zitani, 1998 from Ecuador

Two new Ecuadorian wasp species attacking pyralid larvae are described: Meteorus albisericus and Meteorus pyralivorus, as well as a new Ecuadorian distribution record for Meteorus desmiae Zitani, another pyralid parasitoid, previously known from Costa Rica and Colombia. The hosts of M. albisericus were found feeding on Clibadium glabrescens S. F. Blake (Asteraceae), Diplazium costale var. robustum (Sodiro) Stolze (Dryopteridaceae), Brunellia tomentosa Bonpl. (Brunelliaceae) and Cavendishia sp. Lindl. (Ericaceae). Chusquea scandens Kunth (Poaceae) is the associated plant for M. pyralivorus hosts. Meteorus. albisericus is the first Neotropical Meteorus species with dorsopes whose biology is known. We hypothesize that the parasitism of pyraloid caterpillars has originated at least twice in Neotropical Meteorus. http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:B603F36B-4645-490D-AD4D-469088EEF36F

A taxonomic study of Costa Rican Leptodrepana with the description of twenty-four new species (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Cheloninae)

Abstract The genus Leptodrepana Shaw was described in 1983, but prior to the current study only one Neotropical species had been described from Mexico and none were named from Costa Rica. In this paper twenty-four new species are described and named from Costa Rica: L. alexisae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. atalanta Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. conda Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. conleyae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. demeter Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. eckerti Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. gauldilox Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. hansoni Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. kimbrellae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. lorenae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. munjuanae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. ninae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. pamelabbas Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. ronnae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. rosanadana Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. schuttei Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. scottshawi Dadelahi, sp. n., L. shriekae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. sohailae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. sorayae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. soussanae Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. stasia Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., L. strategeri Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n., and L. thema Dadelahi & Shaw, sp. n. A key to Costa Rican species of Leptodrepana is provided. The flagellum of all female Leptodrepana described in this work is reduced to only 17 flagellomeres. This character state is also found in two North American species described by Shaw (1983), L. opuntiae Shaw and L. oriens Shaw. It is hypothesized that a female antenna with 17 flagellomeres is a synapomorphy for a species-group comprising all the Costa Rican Leptodrepana species as well as two of the Mexican and North American species, L. opuntiae and L. oriens.

Contrasting patterns of altitudinal distribution between parasitoid wasps of the subfamilies Braconinae and Doryctinae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae)

Many tropical organisms have narrow altitudinal ranges and therefore may be especially vulnerable to climate change. Parasitoid wasps are no exception, so baseline knowledge about their vulnerability to rising temperatures needs to include analyses of their distributional ranges along elevational gradients. Using museum collections of the parasitoid subfamilies Braconinae and Doryctinae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) from Costa Rica, we tested two alternative hypotheses explaining altitudinal distributions of communities: (i) the Mid‐domain effect, which states that species diversity peaks at middle elevations as a result of species’ random distributions; and (ii) Rapoports effect, which predicts that species diversity should monotonically decrease with increasing elevation. We found that for the Doryctinae, species diversity decreased monotonically with elevation, while the Braconinae showed two peaks. Species altitudinal ranges increased with elevation in the Doryctinae, as predicted by Rapoports effect, but not so in the Braconinae. Neither of the subfamilies’ distributions fit the prediction of the Mid‐domain effect. The richness peak at low elevations displayed by the Braconinae and Doryctinae matches the distribution of wood‐boring beetles, which are potential hosts for both taxa. The second peak described in the Braconinae at middle elevations may reflect either better access or higher availability of potential hosts in the Diptera and Lepidoptera at those elevations. Because species in the Doryctinae, on average, had altitudinal ranges that were broader and lower in elevation than species in the Braconinae, our results suggest that species in the Doryctinae might have greater resilience to future temperature increases.

Revision of the genus Centistes (Hymenoptera: Braconidae: Euphorinae: Centistini) of Costa Rica

This paper provides the first taxonomic revision for the euphorine genus Centistes from a Neotropical country. Twenty-three new species are described: C. achterbergi sp. n., C. acuticaudatus sp. n., C. auricephalus sp. n., C. auristigma sp. n., C. bicaudatus sp. n., C. cabecares sp. n., C. cartagoensis sp. n., C. chorotegus sp. n., C. compactus sp. n., C. curvicaudatus sp. n., C. gauldi sp. n., C. hansoni sp. n., C. hirsutus sp. n., C. janzeni sp. n., C. laticaudatus sp. n., C. longicaudatus sp. n., C. marshi sp. n., C. muertensis sp. n., C. ornamentum sp. n., C. pilosus sp. n., C. puntarenensis sp. n., C. sergeyi sp. n., C. zurquiensis sp. n. A taxonomic key, including the two previously described species, C. epicaeri Muesebeck and C. gasseni Shaw, is presented. As a whole, the Centistes exhibit their highest diversity in the premontane cloud forests.