We know too little about parasitoid wasp distributions to draw any conclusions about latitudinal trends in species richness, body size and biology

Much has been written about latitudinal trends in parasitoid diversity and biology, though it is widely recognised that they are a comparatively poorly known group. Here I show that for both braconid and ichneumonid wasps there are highly significant relationships between body size and the mean reco...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2012-02, Vol.7 (2), p.e32101-e32101
Main Author: Quicke, Donald L J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Biodiversity
Biology
Birds
Body Size
Braconidae
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
Ecology
Ecosystem
Endangered & extinct species
Genetic Speciation
Geography
Herbivores
Hymenoptera
Hypotheses
Ichneumonidae
Ichneumonoidea
Mammals
Morphology
Natural history
Parasites - classification
Parasites - physiology
Parasitoids
Perdita croceipes
Phylogenetics
Plants (botany)
Species richness
Taxa
Taxonomy
Trends
Wasps
Wasps - classification
Wasps - physiology
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Summary:Much has been written about latitudinal trends in parasitoid diversity and biology, though it is widely recognised that they are a comparatively poorly known group. Here I show that for both braconid and ichneumonid wasps there are highly significant relationships between body size and the mean recorded latitude of species. Numbers of species per genus (surrogates of clades) peaks in the temperate zone for both families contrasting with data from the virtually complete inventories for mammals, birds and monocot plants, suggesting massive under-description of tropical parasitoid faunas. If the ichneumonoids may be expected to show similar trends to mammals, birds and other groups, the implication is that taxonomic work both in terms of active generic revisions, but also likely, the collecting and processing of museum specimens, and selection of taxa for revision, is woefully inadequate to allow latitudinal patterns in biology to be analysed.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0032101