Open access in a taxonomic sense: a morphological and molecular guide to Western Palaearctic Dusona (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae)

Abstract

In the present time of biodiversity crisis, assessing species diversity by accurate and accessible taxonomic revisions is more crucial than ever. Parasitoid wasps are considered as both one of the most diverse and under-studied groups in the tree of life. Dusona Cameron, 1901 (Ichneumonidae, Campopleginae) is with 442 species one of the most species - rich genera of Darwin wasps, but despite the existence of recent keys, species identification has proven difficult to impossible to non-specialists. In this study, we examined about 1,500 Dusona specimens from recent and historical collections in Sweden and Switzerland. We provide a photographic guide to diagnostic characters and detailed plates for 57 out of 125 Western Palaearctic Dusona species, facilitating species identification based on existing keys. We add 11 and 3 species to the faunistic records of Sweden and Switzerland, respectively. Furthermore, we reconstruct the phylogeny of European Dusona based on four standard markers (COI, CAD, ITS2, 28S) for 45 species, complemented with a reliable reference barcode library for 46 species. Even though we can identify several morphologically distinct clades, we do not propose any new subgenera due to prevalent homoplasy of characters. While most species are well separated by barcodes, several morphologically distinct species have barely discriminatory barcode sequences (p-distances < 2%) or are even paraphyletic in this marker, indicating limitations in the applicability of barcodes for Darwin wasps. This study reveals severe gaps in the inventories of neglected taxa even for well-studied countries such as Sweden and Switzerland. As this study makes species determination for Western Palaearctic Dusona more accessible, we encourage more people, including non-specialists, to work with this genus.