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Citation for Study 13911

About Citation title: "The evolution of host associations in the parasitic wasp genus Ichneumon (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae): convergent adaptations to host pupation sites".
About Study name: "The evolution of host associations in the parasitic wasp genus Ichneumon (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae): convergent adaptations to host pupation sites".
About This study is part of submission 13911 (Status: Published).

Citation

Tschopp A., Riedel M., Kropf C., Nentwig W., & Klopfstein S. 2013. The evolution of host associations in the parasitic wasp genus Ichneumon (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae): convergent adaptations to host pupation sites. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 13: 74.

Authors

  • Tschopp A.
  • Riedel M.
  • Kropf C.
  • Nentwig W.
  • Klopfstein S.

Abstract

The diversification of organisms with a parasitic lifestyle is often tightly linked to the evolution of their host associations. If a tight host association exists, closely related species tend to attack closely related hosts; host associations are less stable if associations are determined by more plastic traits like parasitoid searching and oviposition behaviour. The pupal-parasitoids of the genus Ichneumon attack a variety of macrolepidopteran hosts. They are either monophagous or polyphagous, and therefore offer an ideal system to investigate the evolution of host associations. Ichneumon was previously divided into two groups based on general body shape; however, this character complex has been suggested as an adaptation to host pupation sites, and might thus not represent a reliable phylogenetic character. We here reconstruct the first molecular phylogeny of the genus Ichneumon using two mitochondrial (CO1 and ND1) and one nuclear marker (28S). The resulting phylogeny only supports monophyly of Ichneumon when Ichneumon lugens (Gravenhorst, 1829, formerly in Chasmias) (stat. rev.) and possibly Coelichneumon deliratorius (Linnaeus, 1758) are included. Neither parasitoid species which attack hosts of the same family, nor those attacking butterflies form monophyletic clades. Ancestral state reconstructions suggest multiple transitions between searching for hosts above versus below ground and between a stout versus elongated body shape. A model assuming correlated evolution between the two characters was highly preferred over independent evolution of host-searching niche and body shape. Host relations, both in terms of phylogeny and ecology, evolved at a high pace in the genus Ichneumon. Numerous switches between hosts of different lepidopteran families have occurred, which is a pattern that seems to be the rule among idiobiont parasitoids. A stout versus slender body and antennal shape in the parasitoid female is confirmed as an ecological adaptation, as it has evolved convergently several times and is highly correlated with the host?s pupation niche. Morphological characters which might be involved in adaptation to hosts should be avoided as diagnostic characters for phylogeny and classification, as they can be expected to show high levels of homoplasy.

Keywords

idiobionts, parasitoid wasp, phylogeny, homoplasy, host relations

External links

About this resource

  • Canonical resource URI: http://purl.org/phylo/treebase/phylows/study/TB2:S13911
  • Other versions: Download Reconstructed NEXUS File Nexus Download NeXML File NeXML
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