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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Systematic Entomology Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #344910
Research Project: Systematics of Parasitic and Herbivorous Wasps of Agricultural Importance

Location: Systematic Entomology Laboratory

Title: Phylogeny of Evanioidea (Hymenoptera, Apocrita), with descriptions of new Mesozoic species from China and Myanmar

Author
item LI, LONGFENG - Agricultural University Of China
item RASNITSYN, ALEXANDR - Russian Academy Of Sciences
item SHIH, CHUNGKUN - Capital Normal University
item LABANDEIRA, CONRAD - Smithsonian Institute
item Buffington, Matthew
item REN, DONG - Central China Normal University

Submitted to: Cladistics
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/25/2018
Publication Date: 9/3/2018
Citation: Li, L., Rasnitsyn, A., Shih, C., Labandeira, C., Buffington, M.L., Ren, D. 2018. Phylogeny of Evanioidea (Hymenoptera, Apocrita), with descriptions of new Mesozoic species from China and Myanmar. Cladistics. 43:810842. https://doi.org/10.1111/syen.12315.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/syen.12315

Interpretive Summary: Fossil insects tell us a great deal about the evolution of planet Earth. Family trees allow us to interpret the evolutionary patterns of animals. In this paper, fossils and family trees are combined to research evolution of wasps that kill cockroaches and their allies. The results of this paper will be of interest to other taxonomists, evolutionary biologists, and biological control researchers.

Technical Abstract: The phylogeny of the superfamily Evanioidea is presented using morphology and DNA sequence data of selected extant and fossil genera by employing two phylogenetic methods, maximum parsimony and Bayesian inference. Based on our new results, monophyly of Evanioidea is corroborated. Evanioidea, Anomopterellidae, Othniodellithidae, Andreneliidae and Evaniidae are monophylic families, while Praeaulacidae, Aulacidae, Baissidae and Gasteruptiidae are paraphylic families. To better understand morphological evolution in early lineages of Evanioidea, ancestral states of sexual dimorphism in flagellomere number, forewing venation and structure of the first metasomal segment are reconstructed on a morphology-based tree. In addition, four new genera (Sinuevania, Curtevania, Exilaulacus, Heterobaissa) with five new species (Sinuevania mira, Curtevania enervia, Exilaulacus loculatus, Exilaulacus latus, Heterobaissa apetiola), and five additionally new species (Newjersevania longa, Newjersevania brevis, Cretevania tenuis, Cretevania venae, Praeaulacus rectus) and one new combination Cretevania mitis (Li, Shih & Ren, 2014a) comb. nov. are described based on well-preserved fossils from the Middle Jurassic Jiulongshan Formation in Inner Mongolia, China, the Early Cretaceous Yixian Formation in Liaoning, and mid Cretaceous amber from Myanmar. This study documents the diversification of one major lineage of the mid-Mesozoic parasitoid revolution that dramatically changed food-web relationships in terrestrial ecosystems.