Revision of the genus Promicrogaster (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Microgastrinae) from Area de Conservación Guanacaste, Costa Rica, with a key to all species previously described from Mesoamerica

Abstract

The genus Promicrogaster (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Microgastrinae) from Area de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG), Costa Rica, is revised. A key is provided to all new species as well as those previously described from Mesoamerica. A total of 21 species, all authored by Fernandez-Triana & Boudreault, are described as species nova : alexmartinezi, andreyvallejosi, brandondinartei, daniellopezi, daretrizoi, eddycastroi, eimyobandoae, fabiancastroi, fabriciocambroneroi, hillaryvillafuerteae, kevinmartinezi, kiralycastilloae, leilycastilloae, liagrantae, luismendezi, monteverdensis, naomiduarteae, pablouzagai, ronycastilloi, sebastiancambroneroi, tracyvindasae. A species previously described from India is considered as incertae sedis. Promicrogaster is considered to be restricted to the New World, with the vast majority of the species found in the Neotropics and a few extending north to the Nearctic. Almost 60% of the known species in ACG are found in cloud forests at over 1,000 m altitude. All of the verified and authenticated host records for Promicrogaster are from caterpillars living more deeply inside plant tissue than simply in rolled leaf structures -although no host data from ACG is available.

Revision of the North American species of Promicrogaster (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Microgastrinae), with an updated key to all described species in North and Meso America

“…nov. described below are only represented by a single specimen, in spite of the studied region having tens of thousands of specimens of Microgastrinae in the CNC collection that were examined for this paper. The relative scarcity of Promicrogaster specimens from North America is similar to what was found when studying the Costa Rican fauna (Fernández-Triana et al 2016), when very few specimens of the genus were available among tens of thousands of specimens of Microgastrinae examined. Whether Promicrogaster is indeed rare in nature or just not commonly collected is still unknown.…”

“…Detailed morphological characterization of Promicrogaster was provided in Fernández-Triana et al (2016). It is a very distinctive genus defined by the combination of elongate and bilobate glossa, large polished areas on lateral face of scutellum, and ovipositor shape and length.…”

“…The descriptions include characters that are commonly used in describing Microgastrinae (e.g., body measurements such as length of body and fore wing, ovipositor sheath; and also color of particular body areas). These characters follow a recent revision of the Mesoamerican Promicrogaster (Fernández-Triana et al 2016), so as to facilitate future comparisons between species in the New World.…”

“…The dichotomous key is based on that provided by Fernández-Triana et al (2016), expanded to accommodate the new North American species, and revised to correct some previous inaccuracies. In a few couplets of the key, some qualifiers ("either", "and", "or", "and/or") are shown in bold and italic to be explicit that in those cases more than one character state must be considered.…”

DNA barcoding the Lepidoptera inventory of a large complex tropical conserved wildland, Area de Conservacion Guanacaste, northwestern Costa Rica

“…As a tiny, but illustrative example of the latter, the species behind the newly designated 20 patronyms for the Costa Rican school children who are winners of an Area de Conservacion Tempisque conservation drawing contest (Kazmier 2015a) were all located by DNA barcoding of ACG inventory Malaise-trapped wasps and their simultaneous morphology-based generic placement and corroboration; the wasps are minute and hardly noticeable braconid microgastrine ACG parasitic Promicrogaster (Fernandez-Triana et al 2016); all 150+ members of the ACG staff have an Apanteles patronym that is most easily recognized by its barcode and corroborated by its morphology, placement in by classical key, host caterpillar, and microgeographic habitat (Fernandez-Triana et al 2014a); even the President of Costa Rica has his very own unique Pseudapanteles luisguillermosolisi (Fernandez-Triana et al 2014b;Kazmier 2015b).…”