Hidden biodiversity in entomological collections: The overlooked co-occurrence of dipteran and hymenopteran ant parasitoids in stored biological material.

ABSTRACT: Biological collections around the world are the repository of biodiversity on Earth; they also hold a large quantity of unsorted, unidentified, or misidentified material and can house behavioral information on species that are difficult to access or no longer available to science. Among the unsorted, alcohol-preserved material stored in the Formicidae Collection of the 'El Colegio de la Frontera Sur' Research Center (Chetumal, Mexico), we found nine colonies of the ponerine ant Neoponera villosa, that had been collected in bromeliads at Calakmul (Campeche, Mexico) in 1999. Ants and their brood were revised for the presence of any sign of parasitism. Cocoons were dissected and their content examined under a stereomicroscope. Six N. villosa prepupae had been attacked by the ectoparasitoid sy

SUBMITTER: Perez-Lachaud G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5604966 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature