Charipinae Worldwide Revision with special attention to Alloxysta and Phaenoglyphis genera (Hym.Cynipoidea: Figitidae)

Resum

Members of the subfamily Charipinae (Hymenoptera: Cynipoidea: Figitidae) are secondary parasitoids of aphids via Aphidiinae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) and Aphelininae (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae) and secondary parasitoids of psylids via Encyrtidae (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea). The charipines affect effectiveness of the primary parasitoids by decreasing their abundance and modifying their behavior. As a result, increase of aphid host populations can cause severe yield losses in some of the most important crops. Therefore, studies on the subfamily Charipinae have a great economical and biological importance. This subfamily was until now in a chaotic state with a null phylogenetic knowledge, with many described species within the last and a half century but without any deep revision of them, nor any study of the generic internal relationship. Before focus on ecological and molecular detailed studies based on charipines, it was necessary to carry out a basic taxonomic revision of this group. As well as study their diversity and distribution patterns, which has considerably helped to the identification of species we are working with. This has been the main objective during the last years, started with the updated worldwide catalogue of this subfamily. The knowledge about the subfamily Charipinae has been significantly increased, with special attention to the Alloxysta and Phaenoglyphis, the most abundant and widely distributed genera within this subfamily; these genera are also the most important affecting to the practices of aphid biological control. As a first step, it has been revised the type material of the Alloxysta, Apocharips and Phaenoglyphis genera in order to complete the revision of this subfamily. Thanks to the study of this type material, with the revision of many specimens deposited in different institutions and sent to the University of Barcelona, it has been possible to establish the interspecific limits based on morphological features, making new synonymies or breaking down groups of species when it has been necessary. On the other hand, a complete faunistic revision of the members of this subfamily has been due to term, thanks to these studies the knowledge about the diversity and distribution patterns of the Charipinae has been greatly increased. The Charipinae is a cosmopolitan subfamily, well distributed around the five biogeographical regions: Oriental, Australia, Africa, Neotropical and Nearctic. For the preparation of this thesis we have selected twelve papers as examples to illustrate the achievements of the objectives proposed. The first three papers show the taxonomic revisions that have been carried out to validate and establish the correct taxonomic status of all the Charipinae species, the next two explain how we have dealt with some taxonomic problems we have found during these studies, another pointing to the importance of the revision of the material deposited in different institutions, five focused on the biodiversity revisions made in every continent establishing many new records and describing many new species, and an example of the a work which not only study the Charipinae biodiversity also new trophic relationships are discovered. As a complement we include all the new species which are still under review and which will be included in the new update catalogue that we have prepared after all the revisions and in the complete Charipinae keys. All the information recompiled during these years of studies will be soon available to be consulted on a website that we are working on at this moment in order to maximize the disclosure of our results, as well as in different papers. With this thesis the taxonomy of the subfamily Charipinae is now solved and new studies from different points of view (molecular and ecology) could be proposed to continue with the studies focus on this interesting group of wasps.