New Dryocosmus Giraud species associated with Cyclobalanopsis and non-Quercus host plants from the Eastern Palaearctic (Hymenoptera, Cynipidae, Cynipini)

Abstract

Our knowledge about gall wasps associated with the diverse East Asian oaks, Castanopsis and Cyclobalanopsis, is limited due to the lack of extensive field studies. All of the new species concepts are supported by morphological and molecular data. We provide descriptions, diagnoses, host associations for the new species and an illustrated identification key to Eastern Palaearctic Dryocosmus species. We represent natural language phenotypes in a semantic format supported by biomedical ontologies to increase the accessibility of morphological data.

Re-description and systematic re-appraisal of the genus Kokkocynips Pujade-Villar & Melika, (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae: Cynipini), including new combinations of Nearctic species and the description of a new species from Panama

“…The biology of Kokkocynips species supports the hypothesis of high host plant specificity in oak gall wasps. The vast majority of individual oak gall wasp species induce galls on species from just a single section within the genus Quercus (Stone et al 2009, Liljeblad et al 2008, Tang et al 2011, 2016, Pénzes et al 2018. All known Kokkocynips species induce galls either on the leaves, twigs or buds of red oaks (Quercus section Lobatae), and this genus is nested within a larger clade of species all of which also induce their galls on red oaks.…”

A new genus of Neotropical oak gall wasp, Prokius Nieves-Aldrey, Medianero & Nicholls, gen. nov. (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae: Cynipini), with description of two new species from Panama

“…Oak gall wasps (Cynipini) are by far the most species-rich group of gall wasps, with more than 1,000 known species in 50 genera worldwide (Csóka et al 2005, Ronquist et al 2015, Nicholls et al 2018a, Cuesta-Porta et al 2020, Fang et al 2020, Nieves-Aldrey et al 2021. Between 90 and 95% of described Cynipini species induce galls on the genus Quercus L. (Fagaceae; Csóka et al 2005), while the remainder induce galls on other genera in the family Fagaceae (Castanea, Castanopsis, Chrysolepis, Lithocarpus and Notholithocarpus) (Nieves-Aldrey et al 2009, Tang et al 2016, Nicholls et al 2018b). The species richness of oak gall wasps is highest in the relatively well-studied faunas of the Western Palaearctic and Nearctic regions (about 900 spp.…”