Name: ISABEL DE CONTE CARVALHO DE ALENCAR
Type: PhD thesis
Publication date: 13/01/2017
Advisor:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| Celso Oliveira Azevedo | Advisor * |
Examining board:
| Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| Ana Carolina Loss Rodrigues | Internal Examiner * |
| Celso Oliveira Azevedo | Advisor * |
| Frederico Falcão Salles | Internal Examiner * |
| Julia Calhau Almeida | External Examiner * |
| Ricardo Kawada | External Examiner * |
Summary: The flat wasp Apenesia Westwood is a worldwide genus with high sexual dimorphism. Females are rare, without eyes or ocelli, wingless and small, WHEREas males are fully winged, robust, with developed eyes and ocelli, and are larger than the conspecific female. There are 191 species described, which are mostly known only by the male sex. Several nomenclatural and taxonomic problems are observed in Apenesia. Besides sexual dimorphism and females underrepresentation, the characters delimiting Apenesia are shared by several Pristocerinae genera, making classification uncertain and hampering
understanding of character evolution and variation between taxa. Here we aimed 1) to test if Apenesia is monofiletic; 2) to delimit the genus cladisticaly based on morphological and molecular data (COI and 28S genes); 3) to associate males and females based on DNA; and 4) to review the species of Apenesia, providing descriptions and illustrations when necessary. Examined material was provided by several institutions. We analyzed 163 morphological characters and 1,553 nucleotide base pairs on TNT using Tradicional
Search. Bayesian Inference was performed on the concatenated molecular data through MRBAYES. Apenesia was recovery as polyphyletic in all analyses. We observed 10 different clades with species of Apenesia spread throughout the tree. These clades can be associated to morphological patterns. For example, one lineage of Apenesia is included within the species of Dissomphalus; other clade is close related to (Prosapenesia + Acrepyris + Pristocera) and is represented by males with clypeus triangular and
hypopygium strongly concave. Neoapenesia was recovery as paraphyletic and sister group to a partial Apenesia laevigata species-group. Other Apenesia lineages were not recovered, being polytomic within Pristocerinae. We mapped structural morphological characters from females onto the molecular trees to enlighten female morphological patterns in the groups and to recover morphological evolution. We conclude that females add a set of features that can help genera delimitation. Although historically considered
as an easy genus to classify, the structural analyses and phylogenetic inferences report multiple independent lineages within Apenesia species, indicating high convergence within Pristocerinae. Based on our results, some nomenclatural acts need to be proposed: 1) two Pristocerinae genera will be synonymies with Apenesia lines; 2) two taxa need to revalidate their generic status; 3) eight new combinations; and 4) six new genera will be
nominated. Apenesia is now defined as flat wasps having males with the mesoscutum gibbous, the genitalia with paramere narrow and densely pilose and aedeagus with ventral apical lobe elliptical and covered in warts. Females of Apenesia can be distinguished from other Pristocerinae by having the head wider than the mesosoma, the antennae is short, the mandible is long, and the clypeus surpasses the toruli in the frons. We also provide a worldwide revision of Apenesia with a redescription of all known species and the description of 21 new species. Finally, our data reinforce the problems to define Apenesia
and other genera in Pristocerinae.
