Short Communication |
Corresponding author: Janisete Gomes Silva ( jgs10@uol.com.br ) Academic editor: Vladimir Gokhman
© 2015 Igor Silva Santos, Jacques Hubert Charles Delabie, Marco Antonio Costa, Cléa Santos Ferreira Mariano, Janisete Gomes Silva.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Santos IS, Delabie JHC, Costa MA, Mariano CSF, Silva JG (2015) First description of the karyotype of a eucharitid wasp (Hymenoptera, Chalcidoidea, Eucharitidae). Comparative Cytogenetics 9(4): 607-612. https://doi.org/10.3897/CompCytogen.v9i4.5201
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The haploid karyotype of Kapala sp. (Eucharitidae), a parasite of the Neotropical ant Dinoponera lucida Emery, 1901 (Hymenoptera, Formicidae), is reported for the first time. It consists of four metacentric chromosomes. Chromosomes in the family Eucharitidae were unknown so far; therefore, our results confirm that multiple parallel chromosomal fusions have taken place in several lineages within the superfamily Chalcidoidea.
Kapala , parasitoid wasp, Eucharitidae , cytogenetics
Eucharitidae are a comparatively small family of hymenopteran parasitoid wasps with 423 described species (
Despite the large number of described species, less than 1% of chalcid wasps have been karyotyped so far (
Wasps of the genus Kapala Cameron, 1884 (Hymenoptera: Eucharitidae) are specialized ant parasitoids that are associated with several poneromorph ant genera such as Ectatomma F. Smith, 1858, Gnamptogenys Roger, 1863, Typhlomyrmex Mayr, 1862 (Ectatomminae), Hypoponera Santschi, 1938, Neoponera Emery, 1901, Odontomachus Latreille, 1804, Pachycondyla F. Smith, 1858, Pseudoponera Emery, 1900 and Dinoponera Roger, 1861 (Ponerinae) (
In this paper, we present the first description of the karyotype in a eucharitid wasp (Kapala sp.) and discuss the importance of these results for the understanding of karyotype evolution in parasitic wasps.
Two specimens of Kapala sp. (presumably a new species according to J. Heraty, 2014, in litt.) were found inside the cocoons of Dinoponera lucida Emery, 1901 (Formicidae, Ponerinae), a young adult male (Fig.
This is the first description of the karyotype of a eucharitid wasp. A total of four metaphases were obtained, all of them showing 2n=8 chromosomes. The karyotype of this species (Fig.
The chromosome number of n=4 in Kapala sp. (Eucharitidae) is quite similar to those reported in other Chalcidoidea families such as Perilampidae (n=3) and Pteromalidae (n=4–7). Perilampus ruschkai Hellén (Perilampidae), n=3 (
The karyotype of Kapala sp. analyzed herein falls into the seventh karyotype pattern group defined by
We thank John Heraty for identifying the specimens and for the valuable information provided. We also thank José Raimundo Maia for the help with the fieldwork and Carter Robert Miller for kindly reviewing the manuscript. Thanks are also due to Marco Gebiola, Lucian Fusu, and Vladimir Gokhman for their valuable comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. Funding for this study was provided by a PRONEX FAPESB CNPq grant PNX0011/2009: “Rede Multidisciplinar de Estudos sobre Formigas Poneromorfas do Brasil” and a FAPESB grant RED012/2012 “Rede de pesquisas em citogenética molecular nos himenópteros aculeados da Bahia”. JHCD, JGS, and MAC are fellows of the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq).