Following up with some previous topics

I have not been able to post anything here in a while, mostly because lack of time due to some research projects that needed to be finished. Most of those projects relate to what this blog is all about, and thus today I will be writing about three of them that are, somehow, related.

Two weeks ago I had a paper published in the Biodiversity Data Journal about potential conservation of Canadian parasitoid wasps by COSEWIC (The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada). This, of course, is a long shot, and there is no guarantee whatsoever that COSEWIC would list any of the species discussed there as candidates for some protection status. Still, that is one of my dearest dreams (perhaps naively?); as a researcher on parasitoid wasps I would LOVE to see someday that our small and often overlooked "friends" are given some attention -and hopefully some protection!

While I was preparing the information for that paper (which included distribution maps in Canada and illustrations for all 16 species included there, see examples below), I had the great opportunity of exchanging emails with Gergely Varkonyi (Finland) and Mark Shaw (Scotland). They both have great experience with the pioneering efforts of (trying to) protecting parasitoid wasps. Gergely was one of the lead authors of the Hymenoptera chapter of the 2010 Red List of Finnish Species, and as such he became (unknown to him) a source of inspiration for me. As for Mark, he has been one of my  mentors for the past few years, and I read his papers routinely. Mark has written some seminal papers on the topic of conservation of parasitoid wasps, and I strongly recommend the reading of his 2001 paper "The Neglect of Parasitic Hymenoptera in Insect Conservation Strategies: The British Fauna as a Prime Example" and his 2006 paper "Habitat considerations for parasitic wasps (Hymenoptera)". While I cannot blame Gergely and Mark if my efforts to emulate them fail here in Canada, I do hope that following into their footsteps would some day bring certain degree of recognition and protection to parasitoid wasps in this side of the Atlantic. At least I will keep pushing! [I have written about these topics in this blog a couple of times before].

Distribution of Pseudapanteles gouleti, a Canadian endemic, in Ontario.

Pseudapanteles gouleti, one of the species with great potential to be considered by COSEWIC.

Lathrapanteles heleios, another species with great potential to be considered by COSEWIC.

Another paper I had published recently in ZooKeys was about a great team-work study of parasitoid wasps of Costa Rica. This manuscript is not for the faint of heart: it deals with 205 species (186 of them new), with more than 300 illustrations and spread over 565 pages. But is yet another example of "Turbotaxonomy". Hopefully soon I will have time to write more about the challenges that such kind of work presents for a taxonomist, but also -and most importantly- about the possibilities that those efforts provide to describe and better comprehend the amazing diversity of species worldwide...

In the meantime, I was very pleased to discover that this paper became some sort of news in many places, including being featured by the National Geographic Daily News, the smart blog "Strange Behaviors" (which used the suggestive title of "The Biological Warfare of Very Small Wasps" to refer to our paper), and even the main newspaper of Costa Rica (link in Spanish).

Curiously enough, last year National Geographic (NG) actually covered the story of a very amazing parasitoid wasp named after Tinkerbell, which was described by John Huber, a good friend and colleague of mine here in the Canadian National Collection of Insects (CNC). [I would like to think that there must be some kind of "secret link" between the NG and the CNC... it could even be used for a nice title of a new TV show, something like "NG-CNC, the CSI of insect discovery!" One can only dream :) But, in all seriousness, I hope that NG will continue to value the work on parasitoid wasps -and other incredible and amazing creatures of our planet].

My last surprise of the month was to find (at last!) some mention to our new species described from New Zealand, the ones that we affectionately call "The Hobbit Wasps". I had hoped that the news of these "cool wasps" would go viral and become a world phenomenon (and, who knows? perhaps even Peter Jackson would ask me to sign him an autograph!). But, disappointingly enough, the news on those wasps never became as big of an issue as I had expected (and, seriously now, my main hope was simpler and less pompous: gaining some support for more research on the New Zealand fauna of parasitoid wasps).

But then, when everything seemed lost (pretty much as in many moments of The Lord of the Rings movies) I found that our paper was actually covered by some media. Admittedly, CryptoVille is a blog that defines itself as dealing with "Bigfoot, Aliens, Mysterious Creatures, and more!", not the traditional outlet than an entomologist would look for his research to be featured and discussed. Still, I was surprised that the author presented the result of our research in a mostly accurate and fair way -and, in fact, I wrote to thank him for his post. And you know what? There are many followers of CryptoVille, MANY MORE than those following this blog that I write. So, of anything, I felt humbled and schooled.

Sometimes the results of our work can reach the most unexpected audiences in the most unexpected ways. As a scientist, I deeply respect this, and I tip my cap to anyone that is willing to promote the appreciation (and protection) of our natural world.

The potential of the Biodiversity Data Journal

For the past few months a new and promising journal has been part of the family of journals under the umbrella of Pensoft Publishers. In the meantime other journals have been added to Pensoft portfolio and, beyond of this publisher, there are dozens of new journals being added every year. So what is news here?

Well, the Biodiversity Data Journal (BDJ) is not exactly your regular biodiversity/taxonomic journal. For one, it does not have upper or lower limit on the size of papers to be published there (more on that below). Another novelty is the online review system, the consolidation of all reviews in one single document (online), and other technical tricks that allow for a faster process of publication. When I write fast I mean much FASTER than a regular journal. There are other interesting features and capabilities (some already functional, others to be added in the near future) that make this journal very attractive. The reader is strongly recommended to check the Editorial that introduced the journal four months ago.
 

Personally, there are three things that specially attract me. First, the fact that there is no lower limit on the data to be published allows for new distribution records, new biological information, and similar data (stored in many natural history collections) to be published now in a much expedite way. Usually taxonomist would wait for a big monograph or review to add that kind of information. But, as it is well known, such big papers may take years (if not decades) to be prepared. And, in the meantime, the data is seating in the collections, unused, loosing value, and even risking to be lost (if, heaven forbids, the taxonomist dies before finishing his/her review). The BDJ can now help to solve at least part of this bottleneck.

The second thing that I like is the possibility of post-publication review of the papers (although I still have not seen any paper being reviewed that way, but hopefully it will happen soon). This will allow for the community to weight into the published papers, which will certainly help to improve the accuracy and quality of what has been published. We are still in the infancy of this kind of approach, but I can see the merits of this, and I am a strong supporter of the idea.

Concerning Hobbits... and Microgastrinae wasps

Today the journal Zootaxa publishes a paper about a new genus of parasitoid wasps only found in New Zealand. The article is open access and can be freely accessed here. It is the second paper of a series on the New Zealand fauna of Microgastrinae wasps, as result of collaborations started in 2011 by Darren Ward and me. Darren is an expert on wasps and ants (among other topics) but, most importantly, he is a scientist with Landcare Research, Auckland, where the largest collection of insects of New Zealand is housed. Thanks to his work, and the work done by other researchers before him, we can now study the fascinating world of parasitoid wasps inhabiting that extraordinary country.

The new genus was named "Shireplitis". The ending "plitis" refers to the superficial similarity of its species with another genus of parasitoid waps, Paroplitis, which is found in Europe, North America, and northern areas of Vietnam and Philippines. The first part of the name "Shire" refers to The Shire, the region exclusively inhabited by Hobbits in J. R. R. Tolkien’s fictional universe setting of Middle-earth. And then, five of the new species found in the genus, which are also described in the paper, are named after the hobbits Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin. A sixth new species is named after Tolkien himself.

Meet the new six species of Shireplitis parasitoid wasps, from New Zealand. The black line in the middle represents 1 millimiter, every wasp species is roughly 2 mm long.

It is not uncommon for scientist to name new species using funny, famous, and/or interesting names. For example, there are species named after Darth Vader, Tinkerbell, Greek Gods, Lady Gaga, and anything in between. Several websites have compiled many of those names, my favourite site being the one maintained by Doug Yanega (University of California, Riverside). His list even includes a section exclusively devoted to names used for characters and creatures from Tolkien!

In our case, we used Tolkien-related names for two main reasons. First, which goes without saying, is because we are fans of Tolkien works. In my personal case, I consider myself a die hard fan of The Lord of the Ring movies, which I usually watch 2-3 times per year (in the way real fans do it: watching the three movies one right after the other, in a 12 hours or so marathon). [By the way: I cannot wait until the three DVDs of The Hobbit movies become available at some point in 2015... at that time I will try an "Iron Man Tolkien Movies Marathon"!].

The second reason is more related to the scientific content of the paper itself, although still carries a strong metaphorical meaning. The new genus is endemic (i.e., exclusive) of New Zealand (where a replicate of the Shire exists); and its six new species are rather short and stout (as text-book hobbits are supposed to be!). All the species have been found in different mountain ranges in New Zealand (mostly on the South Island), meaning that they are truly unique. Last but not least, the species of Shireplitis are morphologically rather similar to Paroplitis, in spite of the huge separation in the geographical distribution of both genera. We think that is due to the similar ecological conditions those wasps species find when looking for its prey (caterpillars), which have made them to look alike in spite they are not closely related. This is a nice example of convergent evolution, and a fascinating testimony of how life evolves under similarly yet slightly different conditions!

So, what is next? Darren and I still have 80-100 new species of microgastrine wasps from New Zealand to describe, which we hope to do within the next few years... We will likely name some species in more conventional ways. But we will certainly have plenty of room to link more names of the Tollkien universe with the scientific universe!

I can surely think of having a few more new wasp species named after the remaining members of the Fellowship of the Ring. And beyond that the new characters of the new Hobbit movies. The sky is the limit... Well, not really, the actual limit is the biodiversity richness -i.e. the number of species- of New Zealand that remains undescribed. But, fortunately, there are still plenty of new species waiting to be discovered.

Next time you watch one of The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings movies, when you look at the beautiful scenery shown as background, think that those mountains hold much more than elf or orcs... they are harbouring an amazing diversity of life, including our new friends, the Shireplitis parasitoid wasps!

Numbers matter

This week I was talking to my colleague Caroline Boudreault about the numbers of Braconidae specimens, species, and primary types that we currently have in Ottawa (Canadian National Collection of Insects, CNC). Caroline, an extremely skillful and knowledgeable person when it comes to braconids, had been asked to revise and update the number of primary types here.  

Primary types (i.e. holotypes, syntypes, lectotypes, and neotypes, as defined by Articles 73-75 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature) are usually one of the main factors considered when evaluating the weight of a collection. The more the types, the higher a collection is ranked. Because primary types are name-bearing specimens. 

So, how good is the CNC in terms of Braconidae types? According to Taxapad, there are almost 300 institutions worldwide storing primary type material of braconid wasps, altogether representing 20,007 type specimens. And, according to that source, Ottawa is the 5th largest collection in the world, with 683 types (see pie chart below).

Number of primary types (mostly holotypes) stored in 272 collections of Braconidae worldwide (after Taxapad, 2012).

When Caroline added some new data that is not yet in Taxapad, the number rose to more than 720. And then we will be incorporating over 200 new holotypes within the next couple of months (I will write about that development in a future post). Thus, in round numbers, the CNC collection of Braconidae is approaching the one-thousand-types mark. 

Of course, beyond the number of primary types it is also important to know the number of specimens overall, the geographic coverage of the collection per se, and its curation state. We do not know those figures with the same precision as for the types, but below I share what have found out so far.

There are almost 60 cabinets, each with 29 drawers, for a total of over 1,600 drawers with braconid wasps in the CNC (a previous summary mentioned 1,500 drawers of Braconidae, but that number has increased steadily in the past two years). Based on that, and on a conservative average number of specimens/drawer,  my tentative estimate would be around half million of specimens. And that only represents the mounted/pined material; there is a huge collection in alcohol (several thousand vials, as mentioned here), where many more thousands specimens await to be processed and incorporated to the main (dry) collection.

Opportunities of DNA barcoding for taxonomists

A few days ago a paper I co-authored came out in Molecular Ecology Resources. That paper is of relevance to this blog because it releases over 20,000 DNA sequences (gene CO1) from over 2,000 species and 50 genera of Microgastrinae braconid wasps, collected in over 75 countries. The number of sequences made available for free use of the scientific community and the general public it is likely one of the highest ever released. It speaks volumes of the efforts made by the International Barcode of Life or iBOL (among many other institutions, partnerships and initiatives) that are promoting the use of DNA barcoding to help cataloging, studying and describing the amazing diversity of life in this planet. [For those interested in more information about DNA barcoding, there are many resources online to look at, probably an easy way is to just start browsing the iBOL website and related sites mentioned there. Suffice to say that DNA barcoding has many practical applications, but for this post I will only focus on its potential for taxonomists working with parasitoid wasps].

The sequences we are talking about today were amassed during the last eight years and they represent the effort of many scientists and institutions -that explains the long chain of authors being part of the paper. The resources can be accessed using BOLD (The Barcode of Life Data Systems) a magnificent online resource designed to support the generation and application of DNA barcode data.

A view of the BOLD website with summarized information about microgastrinae wasps. Accessed on December 21, 2012. For a larger view and more information on the group click here.

Back to the paper mentioned, it not only releases a significant amount of data, but it also provides suggestions on how to use it in the near future. For example, we considered the sequences to be important in efforts related to: 1) Discovery of cryptic species and description of new taxa; 2) Estimating species numbers in biodiversity inventories; 3) Clarification of generic boundaries within Microgastrinae; 4) Biological control programmes; 5) Molecular studies of host-parasitoid biology and ecology; 6) Evaluation of shifts in species distribution and phenology; and (7) Fostering collaboration at national, regional and world levels. 

All of the above mentioned points are relevant to this blog -and are indeed relevant to biocontrol workers, biodiversity researchers, taxonomists, etc. What is more important: many specimens mentioned in the paper actually come from Canada (~6,000 specimens), or from related areas in the Nearctic or Palearctic regions (+3,000). And that will allow us to advance researches in a way that would not have been possible in the past, before the arrival of DNA barcoding.

Braconid wasps and forest pests in Canada

In a previous post, I analyzed some interesting data coming from the Canadian Forest Pest Management Forum. I could find at least 119 species within 20 families of caterpillars (Lepidoptera) that have been mentioned as pests of some kind to our forests in the past few years. As a taxonomist working with braconid wasps, my next logical step was then to see how many parasitoid species have been recorded out of those 119 lepidopterans.

For such a compilation I used the great resource that is Taxapad. [I have mentioned previously what Taxapad is, and promise that will dedicate a future post to that magnificent database maintained by Dicky Yu (Canada), Cornelis van Achterberg (The Netherlands) and Klaus Horstmann (Germany). Suffice to say for now that Taxapad should be considered as a key tool by many biologists and entomologists, especially those working in biocontrol].

Altogether, 299 species of Braconidae have been found, worldwide, attacking those pest caterpillars. I stress here the world "worldwide" in the sense that those records go beyond Canada to include ANY braconid wasp that has been cited in the scientific literature as a parasitoid of those lepidopterans. It is difficult and very time consuming to separate the sources of information for each individual species and pinpoint the country source. And it is even more difficult to be sure about the certainty of some of those records -some are likely to be wrong for a number of causes. Still, they give us a kind of ballpark estimate about the diversity of parasitoids of forest pest caterpillars. So, for the purpose of this post we can take the worldwide totals as a first approximation to the story of what is going on in Canada.

The first thing that becomes clear is how few we know about the parasitoid of those forest pests. Surely that 299 braconids sounds like an awfully large number of wasps, but the numbers are misleading (see the graph below). Because for 40 (33.6%) of those caterpillar species there is ZERO braconid wasps recorded as parasitoids. That means one third of the caterpillars where we know NOTHING of its parasitoid biology. For another 31 species of lepidopterans (26%) we only know one or two species of braconid parasitoids.

Braconidae species (299) recorded as parasitoids of 119 pests caterpillars of some relevance to Canadian forests. Data source mostly from Taxapad (2012). The numbers on top of each bar represent the actual number of braconids in each category.


On the other side of the spectrum, we have recorded 30 or more braconid parasitoids for 4 species of caterpillars. They represent important pests (such as the spruce budworm or the gipsy moth) which at some point have been the focus of serious rearing efforts from biocontrol workers, resulting in hundreds of research papers. If anything, that should be the example to follow with other pest species that are important as well. 

Why Microgastrinae and why they may interest you

When rearing caterpillars, it is common to find some small parasitoid wasps (1.5-8 mm long), often black or yellow and with rather short "abdomen". They belong to the subfamily Microgastrinae (Order Hymenoptera, Family Braconidae), and are one of the most important groups parasitizing butterflies and moths (Order Lepidoptera). These wasps are key components in the biological control of agriculture and forestry pests; and have also been extensively used in biodiversity, ecological, behavioral and molecular studies. However, its narrow host specificity and extraordinary diversity (more than 2,200 described species, with an estimate of 20-40,000 worldwide) presents an immense challenge. 

Addressing the need of more information about those fascinating insects is the main reason of this website. Tips to recognize different genera, species profiles, new biological data, distribution records, and other comments will be provided in following posts. Also, the readers are encouraged to send any question and/or contribution they may have about microgastrines (or any braconid wasp) parasitizing caterpillars. 

Detailed distribution of species and their host records will be compiled from different sources (mostly mined from the large and rich collection available in the Canadian National Collection of Insects, as well as other collections I have visited and/or borrowed material from). Contents intend to be useful to anyone already working or just interested in rearing caterpillars and their parasitoids. It will hopefully interest workers on biological control, bioinformatics, biodiversity researchers, wasp taxonomists, conservation authorities and entomological societies looking for information of species in particular areas. 

An overview of braconid wasps in Canada

Braconid wasps are the second largest group within Hymenoptera (the insect order that comprises bees, stinging wasps, ants, sawflies and parasitoid wasps). The last version of Taxapad records 956 described species of Braconidae for Canada. Of course, that is just the total of species that have been given scientific names by taxonomists. But it does not account for the many undescribed and/or unrecorded species that remain to be discovered. How many species are actually out there in the Great White North?  

Main subfamilies of Braconidae (Hymenoptera) in Canada. Total number of species: 956 [based on Taxapad (2012)].

While it is impossible to be certain, it is likely that at least twice the current figure, or about 2,000 species of braconid wasps will be found in Canada when all is said and done. 

Think about that for a second. The only group of living things (excluding perhaps microorganisms) that is more diverse than braconids wasps is yet another group of parasitoid wasps: Ichneumonidae, which happens to be the sister group to braconids. Ichneumonid wasps currently comprise almost 3,000 species in Canada (2,834, according to Taxapad). Nothing else comes even close to those figures -and the same situation is probably found in most other areas of the planet. We are talking here about the biodiversity heavy-weights.

Two thousand species of braconid wasps in Canada is a great number, and it amazes to think that we are still missing ONE THOUSAND species to be recorded -let alone studied in detail! The vast majority of those tiny wasps play a capital role in the natural regulation of herbivores -which might otherwise become pests of our crops and forests. Thus, this is not only a matter of scientific inquiry, but also a practical issue with economical implications.