projects->Diapriidae->

Objectives

A study of Entomacis Foerster will begin to address the above problems and will provide an entry point towards broader questions concerning the Diapriidae. In particular the North American species are a desirable study group for several reasons 1) they provide a potentially manageable number of species for a study of this nature, 2) nothing has been published on an Entomacis species from North America since 1916, available publications are not sufficient to allow for species identifications in a majority of cases, 3) a in-depth morphological study of the North American species would provide taxonomic background for future study of the large number of species found world wide, in particular for those closely related species, all undescribed, occurring in South America, and 4) preliminary work suggests clearly defined species groups in North America, the phylogenetic robustness of these groups is of interest.

Objectives: 1) A revision of the species of Entomacis Foerster found in America north of Mexico. 2) Produce a preliminary phylogenetic analysis of the "matte spot" Entomacis.

• The revision of North American species (19 total, 12 new) has been submitted for publication. Using SEMs the morphology of Entomacis has been completely reviewed, and numerous new characters have been recognized and defined. All specimen data (for over 2000 specimens) has been digitally captured and is being used to generate distributions and phenologies. Over 80 new morphospecies have been recognized from world-wide material. Exemplars of these morphospecies have been used in a phylogenetic analysis consisting of over 50 morphological characters and 40 terminals to produce the first phylogeny of world wide species.


• Identification of Entomacis Foerster


• Phylogeny


• Sample species page


• 19 species are described or redescribed with text and over 80 figures in a revision of North American Entomacis which has been submitted. All species will ultimately be given pages similar to this. Dashed lines represent new species names that have not yet been made available.


• Diapriid references and background.