Diversity of Economically Important Indian Microgastrinae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) with New Records from India

Abstract

Microgastrinae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) is a hyperdiverse subfamily of koinobiont parasitic wasps which are obligate endoparasitoid of larval Lepidoptera. Indian Microgastrinae encompasses 21 genera and 231 species including introduced species for various biological control programmes. Of these, 191 species are currently recognised as valid, and 40 species are questionable due to the lack of type specimens or erroneous identification. Amongst the four species that are introduced in India as parasitoids for control of their respective pest, only one has been recovered, whilst the rest have not been established or their present status is not known. Indian microgastrine genera include Apanteles, Buluka, Cotesia, Distatrix, Dolichogenidea, Diolcogaster, Fornicia, Parapanteles, Hypomicrogaster, Microgaster, Microplitis, Neoclarkinella, Parapanteles, Parenion, Philoplitis, Pholetesor, Protapanteles, Promicrogaster, Protomicroplitis, Snellenius and Wilkinsonellus. Nearly 42 species under 15 genera have been documented from all across India during 2010–2012. Also 35 species of hosts from 14 families of Lepidoptera are also recorded in association with parasitic wasp species. Apanteles followed by Cotesia is recorded as the most diverse and maximum encountered genus in India. New records of microgastrine wasps from host families Crambidae, Arctiidae and Hesperiidae are recorded: Apanteles mamitus Nixon, a solitary endoparasitoid, parasitic on larvae of Spoladea recurvalis (Fabricius) (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) on the host plant Amaranthus sp., is recorded for the first time from India and cashew leaf roller, Pleuroptya balteata (Fabricius) (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) on Anacardium occidentale L., is recorded as a new host for Apanteles javensis Rohwer. Dolichogenidea kunhi Gupta and Kalesh is recorded from a larva of Borbo cinnara (Wallace) (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae) from Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. A new distribution record for Neoclarkinella vitellinipes (You and Zhou) is obtained from southern India. Distinct host-range extension is noticed for species A. phycodis, A. javensis and D. kunhi. The present study provides a comprehensive list of microgastrine species with host-parasitoid association, information on diagnostic characters of species with new records, species distribution, taxonomic relationships and GenBank accession numbers of all molecularly characterised species studied during 2010–2012.