PEET

Enhancing Taxonomic Expertise in Parasitoid Wasps
The Insect Family Scelionidae (Hymenoptera)

Project Summary

This proposal requests five years of support from the Partnerships in Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy (PEET). The overall goal of this project is to develop the skills and proficiency of the next generation of specialists in the theory and practice of systematics. The focus group for the project is the Scelionidae, a large group of parasitic insects of demonstrated importance as biological control agents of insect pests and of general evolutionary interest. This group has over 3,000 species described, but the vast majority are either undescribed or unidentifiable. These wasps attack and kill the eggs of other insects and spiders, thus acting as a natural means to keep pest populations at low levels. Specifically, the project seeks to study the diversity and relationships of two genera in the family, Acanthoscelio and Phanuromyia. Both are very poorly known, the vast majority of species have never been formally described and named. The two groups will be monographed, i.e., including formal descriptions of all taxa, keys to provide means for identification, analyses of the phylogenetic relationships among species within each genus and of the relationships within the family as a whole, and an analysis of their distribution. The entire world fauna of both groups will be studied. The primary data for the project will be derived from a detailed comparative analysis of the external morphological features of the adult. The results of the studies will be published in traditional peer-reviewed publications. In addition, the character data, the geographic distributional data associated with each specimen, and graphical keys to identification will be stored in electronic form as the work proceeds and then made available on the Internet via the World Wide Web server of the Ohio State University Insect Collection. Two graduate students will be trained to develop expertise on scelionid systematics and biology as an integral part of the project. They will thus be the nucleus for the next generation of systematists on this group.

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