New species and new records of <i>Aphelinus</i> Dalman (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea: Aphelinidae) from Lagodekhi Reserve (Sakartvelo - Georgia), with diversity and distribution along an elevational gradient

Abstract

Introduction The family Aphelinidae (Hymenoptera, Chalcidoidea) currently includes 43 genera and 1168 species (Noyes, 2017) placed in five subfamilies (Aphelininae, Calesinae, Coccophaginae, Eretmocerinae, and Eriaphytinae) according to the recent classification by Heraty et al. (2013). Most of the species of Aphelinidae are parasitoids of Hemiptera while others also parasitize upon Orthoptera, Hymenoptera, Diptera, and Lepidoptera (Yasnosh, 1995). The genus Aphelinus Dalman (Aphelininae) includes the parasitoid species of sap-sucking aphids (Aphidomorpha) and hence has great potential in biocontrol applications (Nikol'skaya and Yasnosh, 1966; Chervonenko, 1997; Yasnosh, 2002). Species diversity and distribution within this genus is relatively well known. In particular, among the 98 described species worldwide, 37 and 15 species are known from Europe and the Caucasus, respectively

Faunal biodiversity research in the Republic of Georgia: a short review of trends, gaps, and needs in the Caucasus biodiversity hotspot

“…More than 150 articles appeared during the last two decades providing taxonomic treatments and distributional data for one to several Georgian species in a traditional faunistic manner. Consequently, the number of species known for Georgia has increased, even though only a few taxa are studied actively (including three resulted in hundreds of new insect species range records for the region and many new species for science (Japoshvili et al 2016b(Japoshvili et al , 2017Kostjukov and Japoshvili 2016;Aslan et al 2017;Japoshvili 2017;Dobosz et al 2018;Japoshvili and Mumladze 2018;Otto and Japoshvili 2018). In other cases, a closer look at a particular arthropod taxa resulted further species descriptions.…”