A New Species of Saphonecrus (Hymenoptera, Cynipoidea) Associated with Plant Galls on Castanopsis (Fagaceae) in China

Abstract

A new cynipid species, Saphonecrus hupingshanensis Liu, Yang, et Zhu, sp. nov. (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae: Synergini), is described from China. This is the first species of the inquilinous tribe Synergini ever known to have an association with chinquapins (Fagaceae: Castanopsis). The biology and implication to species diversity of Cynipidae in eastern and southeast Asia are discussed.

Description of Synergus castaneus n. sp. (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae: Synergini) Associated with an Unknown Gall on Castanea spp.(Fagaceae) in China

“…All Synergus species have lateral pronotal carinae, except S. plagiotrochi, S. variabilis, S.flavipes, S. acsi, S. palmirae, and S. castaneus. The genus Saphonecrus includes 21 species (Wang et al 2010, Liu et al 2012, nine of which are found in the eastern Palaearctic region. Among these species, Saphonecrus diversus, Saphonecrus exdsus, Saphonecrus flavotibialis, Saphonecrus naiquanlini, and Saphonecrus yukawai have the female antenna with 11 fiagellomeres.…”

“…castaneus is easily distinguishable from the seven species included in the genus Synophrus for the presence of lateral frontal carina (absent in Synophrus), the metasomal quadrangular shape (longer than head + mesosoma and longer than high in lateral view in Synophrus), and by the presence of sexual dichromatism (absent in Synophrus). Almost all species of Synergus and Saphonecrus are associated with Quercus galls caused by other cynipids, but Saphonecrus hupingshanensis (Liu et al 2012) emerged from galls on Castanopsis carlesii (Hemsl.) (Fagaceae) and Sa.…”

“…), which has been demonstrated to be a gall inducer ). The second is S. hupingshanensis (Liu et al 2012), which was inferred to be a gall maker because no gall maker was retired from the same galls. Similarly, for S. castaneus, we were unable to find any other cynipid among the several hundreds of specimens collected, hence we cannot rule out the possibility that this species is a gall inducer.…”

Cynipidae (Hymenoptera: Cynipoidea) on Cyclobalanopsis (Fagaceae) in Mainland China, with the First Record of Sexual Generation of Cynipini in Winter

“…Although Cyclobalanopsis has a widespread distribution in Asia, the gall-inducing cynipids have been restricted to Japan, Taiwan, and Vietnam (Ide et al , 2012(Ide et al , 2013Abe et al 2011;Tang et al 2011a,b;Melika et al 2013;Abe et al 2014). Despite increasingly intensive taxonomic studies being conducted on Mainland China over the past decade (Melika et al 2004;Wang et al 2010Wang et al , 2012Wang et al , 2013Liu et al 2012;Pujade-Villar and Wang 2012;Bernardo et al 2013), no cynipid wasps associated with Cyclobalanopsis have been reported in this region to date.…”

Eastern Palearctic oak cynipid inquilines (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae: Synergini) and associated gallwasps (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae: Cynipini)

“…The examination of the detailed description and illustrations of this species showed that it is not a Saphonecrus but a Synergus species: Synergus hupingshanensis (Liu, Yang & Zhu) which belongs to the group of Synergus species (Synergus castaneus, S. plagiotrochi and S. kawakamii) with partially open radial cell of the fore wing (Schwéger et al 2015a). This species is associated with galls developing on Castanopsis carlesii which from Liu et al (2012) never reared any gallwasp, thus they do not exclude the possibility that S. hupingshanensis might be a gall inducer . Such is the case with Synergus itoensis Abe, Ide & Wachi (Abe et al 2011).…”