Dr Erinn Fagan-Jeffries1, Mollie-Rosae Slater-Baker1, Olivia Portmann1, Katherine Oestmann1, Tiahni Bament1, Dr Jose Fernandez-Triana2

1The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia, 2Canadian National Collection of Insects, Ottawa, Canada

Biography:

Erinn is a parasitoid wasp taxonomist based at the University of Adelaide. She leads the wasp biodiversity group within the Invertebrate Systematics and Biodiversity lab, and is passionate about taxonomy training, citizen science, entomology education and all things parasitoid wasps.

Abstract:

Apanteles is a genus of parasitoid wasps in the subfamily Microgastraine and was previously known from only nine species within Australia. With specimens commonly collected in bulk sampling techniques like Malaise traps, and sometimes reared from their lepidopteran hosts, the genus has been crying out for a modern taxonomic revision for many years. Whilst progress on documenting the Microgastrinae has been increasing in both speed and quality over the last decade, Apanteles is a particularly challenging group even within the morphologically-conserved Microgastrinae – it intensely embodies the ‘they’re all tiny and black and look the same’ mentality that has caused many of Australia’s hyperdiverse insects to languish in museum collections undescribed. This highly collaborative project attempted an accelerated taxonomic approach to document Apanteles in Australia, using cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) and Wingless (Wg) DNA barcodes from over 400 Australian Apanteles specimens from bulk samples, citizen science and recent field work. Using molecular species delimitation in combination with reduced morphological diagnoses, we confirmed at least 48 distinct molecular lineages in Australia, and 34 new species were formally described. In this presentation we’ll discuss some of the collaborations that made the project possible, and lament how ‘accelerated taxonomy’ is sometimes a relative term.