A New Ectoparasitoid Species of<i>Pseudogaurax</i>Malloch, 1915 (Diptera: Chloropidae), Attacking the Fungus-Growing Ant,<i>Apterostigma dentigerum</i>Wheeler, 1925 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

González, Cely T.; Wcislo, William T.; Cambra, Roberto A.; Wheeler, Terry A.; Fernández‐Marín, Hermógenes

doi:10.1093/aesa/saw023

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Apterostigma dentigerum and A. pilosum are sympatric in central Panamá (Currie et al, 2003;González et al, 2019;Figure 1a veil and are located inside decomposing logs, or under rotten wood on the ground. Both ant species cultivate their fungi on decomposing vegetation, insect detritus and frass (Fernández-Marín et al, 2004;González et al, 2016).…”

Section: Apterostigma Nest Biology Collection and Laboratory Maintenancementioning

confidence: 99%

Disease management in two sympatric Apterostigma fungus‐growing ants for controlling the parasitic fungus Escovopsis

Christopher

Wcislo

Martínez-Luis

et al. 2021

Ecology and Evolution

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Section: Apterostigma Nest Biology Collection and Laboratory Maintenancementioning

confidence: 99%

Disease management in two sympatric Apterostigma fungus‐growing ants for controlling the parasitic fungus Escovopsis

Christopher

Wcislo

Martínez-Luis

et al. 2021

Ecology and Evolution

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“…Thousands of myrmecophilous invertebrates have been inventoried to date [ 49 – 54 ] although, with regard to ant parasitoids, there is still a noteworthy lack of knowledge despite some recent efforts endeavored to reduce this gap [ 55 , 56 ]. Insect parasitoid species that attack ant immature stages or adults are present in nine families belonging to the order Hymenoptera [ 29 , 55 , 56 ] and four families from the order Diptera [ 28 , 57 – 59 ]. During the last five years, three of these families, Encyrtidae for hymenopterans and Syrphidae and Chloropidae for dipterans, have been reported for the first time as primary ant parasitoids, a clear indication that, to improve our knowledge on ant parasitoids, a more sustained sampling effort is required.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hidden biodiversity in entomological collections: The overlooked co-occurrence of dipteran and hymenopteran ant parasitoids in stored biological material

Pérez‐Lachaud

Lachaud

2017

PLoS ONE

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Biological collections around the world are the repository of biodiversity on Earth; they also hold a large quantity of unsorted, unidentified, or misidentified material and can house behavioral information on species that are difficult to access or no longer available to science. Among the unsorted, alcohol-preserved material stored in the Formicidae Collection of the ‘El Colegio de la Frontera Sur’ Research Center (Chetumal, Mexico), we found nine colonies of the ponerine ant Neoponera villosa, that had been collected in bromeliads at Calakmul (Campeche, Mexico) in 1999. Ants and their brood were revised for the presence of any sign of parasitism. Cocoons were dissected and their content examined under a stereomicroscope. Six N. villosa prepupae had been attacked by the ectoparasitoid syrphid fly Hypselosyrphus trigonus Hull (Syrphidae: Microdontinae), to date the only known dipteran species of the Microdontinae with a parasitoid lifestyle. In addition, six male pupae from three colonies contained gregarious endoparasitoid wasps. These were specialized in parasitizing this specific host caste as no gyne or worker pupae displayed signs of having been attacked. Only immature stages (larvae and pupae) of the wasp could be obtained. Due to the long storage period, DNA amplification failed; however, based on biological and morphological data, pupae were placed in the Encyrtidae family. This is the first record of an encyrtid wasp parasitizing N. villosa, and the second example of an encyrtid as a primary parasitoid of ants. Furthermore, it is also the first record of co-occurrence of a dipteran ectoparasitoid and a hymenopteran endoparasitoid living in sympatry within the same population of host ants. Our findings highlight the importance of biological collections as reservoirs of hidden biodiversity, not only at the taxonomic level, but also at the behavioral level, revealing complex living networks. They also highlight the need for funding in order to carry out biodiversity inventories and manage existing collections.

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“…Gonzalez et al (2016) report that Pseudogaurax are solitary ectoparasites of ant larvae. They note that parasitized brood were treated the same as non-infected nest mates (González et al, 2016).…”

Section: Chloropidae [1 Record]mentioning

confidence: 99%

Pathogens, parasites, and parasitoids of ants: a synthesis of parasite biodiversity and epidemiological traits

Quevillon

Hughes

2018

Preprint

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1.AbstractAnts are among the most ecologically successful organisms on Earth, with a global distribution and diverse nesting and foraging ecologies. Ants are also social organisms, living in crowded, dense colonies that can range up to millions of individuals. Understanding the ecological success of the ants requires understanding how they have mitigated one of the major costs of social living-infection by parasitic organisms. Additionally, the ecological diversity of ants suggests that they may themselves harbor a diverse, and largely unknown, assemblage of parasites. As a first step, we need to know the taxonomic and functional diversity of the parasitic organisms infecting ants. To that end, we provide a comprehensive review of the parasitic organisms infecting ants by collecting all extant records. We synthesize major patterns in parasite ecology by categorizing how parasites encounter their ant hosts, whether they require host death as a developmental necessity, and how they transmit to future hosts.We report 1,415 records of parasitic organisms infecting ants, the majority of which come from order Diptera (34.8%), phylum Fungi (25.6%), and order Hymenoptera (25.1%). Most parasitic organisms infecting ants are parasitoids (89.6%), requiring the death of their host as developmental necessity and most initially encounter their hosts in the extranidal environment (68.6%). Importantly, though most parasitic organisms infecting ants only need a single host to complete their life cycle (89.2%), the vast majority need to leave the nest before transmission to the next ant host can occur (88.3%), precluding ant-to-ant transmission within the nest. With respect to the host, we only found records for 9 out of 17 extant ant sub-families, and for 82 out of the currently recognized 334 ant genera. Though there is likely bias in the records reported, both host and parasite ecological traits and evolutionary histories underlie the pattern of ant-parasite association reported here. This work provides a foundation for future work that will begin to untangle the ecological drivers of ant-parasite relationships and the evolutionary implications thereof.

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A New Ectoparasitoid Species ofPseudogauraxMalloch, 1915 (Diptera: Chloropidae), Attacking the Fungus-Growing Ant,Apterostigma dentigerumWheeler, 1925 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Cited by 10 publications

References 24 publications

Disease management in two sympatric Apterostigma fungus‐growing ants for controlling the parasitic fungus Escovopsis

Disease management in two sympatric Apterostigma fungus‐growing ants for controlling the parasitic fungus Escovopsis

Hidden biodiversity in entomological collections: The overlooked co-occurrence of dipteran and hymenopteran ant parasitoids in stored biological material

Pathogens, parasites, and parasitoids of ants: a synthesis of parasite biodiversity and epidemiological traits

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