Clave dicotómica para especies parasitoides e hiperparasitoides (Hymenoptera) de áfidos (Hemiptera: Aphididae) de Costa Rica

Abstract

Aphids represent a major problem for many plant species, due to their ability to serve as pathogen vectors; the use of parasitoids as biological control agents might be a suitable option for long term control of their populations. The objective of this study was to prepare a taxonomic key in order to identify parasitoids and hyperparasitoids of aphids obtained in Costa Rica. In total, during 2008 to 2015, 3009 hymenopteran parasitoids were reared from 25 species of aphids, 2832 (94%) were primary parasitoids and 175 (6%) were hyperparasitoids. A taxonomic key was made for the identification of nine species of primary parasitoids, Braconidae-Aphidiinae, Aphelinidae, Eulophidae, and six species of hyperparasitoids in five families. In addition, the genus Quadrictonus (Aphidiinae), was included in the key and was reported for the first time in this study in Costa Rica.

Trophic networks associated with the aphid, Rhopalosiphum maidis (Fitch) (Hemiptera: Aphididae) in a cornfield, Manabí, Ecuador

“…The natural enemies observed constitute important biological control agents associated with the corn leaf aphid. Lysiphlebus testaceipes belongs to the subfamily Aphidiinae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) that includes solitary endoparasitoids, koinobionts, exclusive to adult and immature aphids (Zamora-Mejías & Hanson 2017). This parasitoid in Ecuador had not been reported associated with R. maidis in maize.…”

“…Hoverfly adults were identified with the keys of Marinoni et al (2007) and Mengual et al (2018). The hymenopteran parasitoids emerged from the parasitized aphids were identified using the key provided by Zamora-Mejías and Hanson (2017). Trophic interactions between detected taxa were also plotted.…”

New records of aphid parasitoids (Hymenoptera) from Colombia

“…The external morphology of each parasitoid was observed and described using a Leica Z24 stereomicroscope and photographs were taken using a Nikon SMZ-1500 stereomicroscope. Species were identified with morphological characteristics using the available keys (Menke and Evenhuis 1991, Huang and Polaszek 2007, Starý et al 2007, Rakhshani et al 2012, Ferrer-Suay et al 2013, Tomanović et al 2014, Ullah et al 2015, Kavallieratos et al 2016, Zamora-Mejías and Hanson 2017. Additionally, comments on identifications were made by Robert Kula (United States Department of Agriculture, USA) and Marcus Sampaio (Universidade Feredal de Uberlândia, Brazil).…”

Sizing the Knowledge Gap in Taxonomy: The Last Dozen Years of Aphidiinae Research

“…In the last dozen years, there were 40 papers published in which the authors provided identification keys for Aphidiinae genera and species. The studies can be divided according to subject into several groups: (1) identification keys for Aphidiinae from specific (local) areas: from the Middle East and North Africa [86], Iran [33,86 and references therein], Malta [115], Argentina [116], Pakistan [117,118], Australia [78], Costa Rica [119], Serbia [69], and China [120]; (2) identification keys for species within tribes [120], subtribes [53], genera [16,42,44,47,[49][50][51][52]55,108,112,121], and species complexes [111]; and (3) identification keys for Aphidiinae species related to specific aphids [30], plants [32,36,[122][123][124][125][126][127], and habitats [128].…”