Advances in diapriid (Hymenoptera: diapriidae) systematics, with contributions to cybertaxonomy and the analysis of rRNA sequence data

Diapriids (Hymenoptera: Diapriidae) are small parasitic wasps. Though found throughout the world they are relatively unknown. A framework for advancing diapriid systematics is developed by introducing a new web-based application/database capable of storing a broad range of systematic data, and the first molecular phylogeny specifically focused at examining intrafamilial relationships. In addition to these efforts, a description of a new taxon is provided. Several advantages of digital description, including linking descriptions to an ontology of morphological terms, are highlighted. The functionality of the database is further illustrated in the production of a catalog of diapriid host associations. The hosts database currently holds over 450 association records, for over 500 named taxa (parasitoids and hosts), and over 180 references. Diapriids are found to be primarily endoparasitoids of Diptera emerging from the host pupa. Phylogenetic inference for a molecular dataset of 28S and 18S rRNA sequence data, derived from a diverse selection of diapriids, is accomplished with a new suite of tools developed for handling complex rRNA datasets. Several parsimony-based methodologies, including an alignment-free method of analyzing multiple sequences, are reviewed and applied using the new software tools. Diapriid phylogenetic relationships are shown to be broadly congruent with existing morphology-based classifications. Methods for analyzing typically excluded sequence data are shown to recover phylogenetic signal that would otherwise be lost and the alignment-free method performed remarkably well in this regard. Empirically, phylogenetic approaches that incorporate structural data were not notably different than those that did not

A revision of the North American species of Entomacis Foerster (Hymenoptera:Diapriidae) with a preliminary phylogenetic analysis of worldwide species

Due to the character of the original source materials and the nature of batch digitization, quality control issues may be present in this document. Please report any quality issues you encounter to [email protected], referencing the URI of the item.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-131).Issued also on microfiche from Lange Micrographics.The species of Entomacis Foerster of North America north of Mexico are revised. Eleven species (seven new) and one Holarctic species group, the perplexa group, with one previously described species and eight new morphotypes, are keyed, (re)described, and figured. These taxa are E. ambigua (Brues), E. apopkaensis sp. nov., E. arctica sp. nov., E. cellaria sp. nov., E. cepa sp. nov., E. eoraria sp. nov., E. floridana (Ashmead), E. grandiclava sp. nov., E. longii (Ashmead), E. mellipetiola (Ashmead), E. parambigua sp. nov., E. californica (Ashmead) and the perplexa group morphotypes Co, Cy, M, N, O, Pac, Par, and S. Hemilexodes canadensis (Harrington) is found to be a junior synonym of Entomacis mellipetiola (Ashmead) (new synonymy). The status of Entomacis latipennis (Ashmead), Entomacis filiformis (Ashmead), and Hemilexis jessei Mann are reviewed. New character complexes, particularly chaetotaxy, are emphasized for diapriid species taxonomy. A preliminary phylogenetic analysis of Entomacis of worldwide scope, incorporating 50 informative morphological characters and 40 taxa is presented. Twenty-two additional potentially informative characters are briefly discussed. The monophyly of Entomacis Foerster is corroborated, based primarily on the presence of the matte spot, a unique thoracic character of unknown function. A major division between general morphotypes is recovered based primarily on setal and sensillar characters. Several internal clades are hypothesized and discussed

ontoFAST: An R package for interactive and semi-automatic annotation of characters with biological ontologies

The commonly used Entity-Quality (EQ) syntax provides rich semantics and high granularity for annotating phenotypes and characters using ontologies. However, EQ syntax might be time inefficient if this granularity is unnecessary for downstream analysis. We present an R package ontoFAST that aid production of fast annotations of characters and character matrices with biological ontologies. Its interactive interface allows quick and convenient tagging of character statements with necessary ontology terms. The annotations produced in ontoFAST can be exported in csv format for downstream analysis. Additinally, OntoFAST provides: (i) functions for constructing simple queries of characters against ontologies, and (ii) helper function for exporting and visualising complex ontological hierarchies and their relationships. OntoFAST enhances data interoperability between various applications and support further integration of ontological and phylogenetic methods. Ontology tools are underrepresented in R environment and we hope that ontoFAST will stimulate their further development.</jats:p

Data from: Nearly complete rRNA genes from 371 Animalia: updated structure-based alignment and phylogenetic analysis

This study presents a manually constructed alignment of nearly complete rRNA genes from most animal clades (371 taxa from ∼33 of the ∼36 metazoan phyla), expanded from the 197 sequences in a previous study. This thorough, taxon-rich alignment, available at http://www.wsu.edu/≃jmallatt/research/rRNAalignment.html and in the Dryad Repository (doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.1v62kr3q), is based rigidly on the secondary structure of the SSU and LSU rRNA molecules, and is annotated in detail, including labeling of the erroneous sequences (contaminants). The alignment can be used for future studies of the molecular evolution of rRNA. Here, we use it to explore if the larger number of sequences produces an improved phylogenetic tree of animal relationships. Disappointingly, the resolution did not improve, neither when the standard maximum-likelihood method was used, nor with more sophisticated methods that partitioned the rRNA into paired and unpaired sites (stem, loop, bulge, junction), or accounted for the evolution of the paired sites. For example, no doublet model of paired-site substitutions (16-state, 16A and 16B, 7A–F, or 6A–C models) corrected the placement of any rogue taxa or increased resolution. The following findings are from the simplest, standard, ML analysis. The 371-taxon tree only imperfectly supported the bilaterian clades of Lophotrochozoa and Ecdysozoa, and this problem remained after 17 taxa with unstably positioned sequences were omitted from the analysis. The problem seems to stem from base-compositional heterogeneity across taxa and from an overrepresentation of highly divergent sequences among the newly added taxa (e.g., sequences from Cephalopoda, Rotifera, Acoela, and Myxozoa). The rogue taxa continue to concentrate in two locations in the rRNA tree: near the base of Arthropoda and of Bilateria. The approximately uncertain (AU) test refuted the monophyly of Mollusca and of Chordata, probably due to long-branch attraction of the highly divergent cephalopod and urochordate sequences out of those clades. Unlikely to be correct, these refutations show for the first time that rRNA phylogeny can support some ‘wrong’ clades. Along with its weaknesses, the rRNA tree has strengths: It recovers many clades that are supported by independent evidence (e.g., Metazoa, Bilateria, Hexapoda, Nonoculata, Ambulacraria, Syndermata, and Thecostraca with Malacostraca) and shows good resolution within certain groups (e.g., in Platyhelminthes, Insecta, Cnidaria). As another strength, the newly added rRNA sequences yielded the first rRNA-based support for Carnivora and Cetartiodactyla (dolphin + llama) in Mammalia, for basic subdivisions of Bryozoa (‘Gymnolaemata + Stenolaemata’ versus Phylactolaemata), and for Oligostraca (ostracods + branchiurans + pentastomids + mystacocarids). Future improvement could come from better sequence-evolution models that account for base-compositional heterogeneity, and from combining rRNA with protein-coding genes in phylogenetic reconstruction

PARAMO: A Pipeline for Reconstructing Ancestral Anatomies Using Ontologies and Stochastic Mapping

Tarasov, Sergei, Mikó, István, Yoder, Matthew Jon, Uyeda, Josef C. (2019): PARAMO: A Pipeline for Reconstructing Ancestral Anatomies Using Ontologies and Stochastic Mapping. Insect Systematics and Diversity (AIFB) 3 (6), No. 1: 1-7, DOI: 10.1093/isd/ixz009, URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/isd/ixz00

rRNA371animalsMarch252011

Please see the ReadMe file

rRNA197animalsNov2008

Please see the ReadMe file

Malagasy Conostigmus (Hymenoptera: Ceraphronoidea) and the secret of scutes

We revise the genus Conostigmus Dahlbom 1858 occurring in Madagascar, based on data from more specimens than were examined for the latest world revision of the genus. Our results yield new information about intraspecific variability and the nature of the atypical latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) observed in Ceraphronoidea. We also investigate cellular processes that underlie body size polyphenism, by utilizing the correspondence between epidermal cells and scutes, polygonal units of leather-like microsculpture. Our results reveal that body size polyphenism in Megaspilidae is most likely related to cell number and not cell size variation, and that cell size differs between epithelial fields of the head and that of the mesosoma. Three species, Conostigmus ballescoracas Dessart, 1997, C. babaiax Dessart, 1996 and C. longulus Dessart, 1997, are redescribed. Females of C. longulus are described for the first time, as are nine new species: C. bucephalus Mikó and Trietsch sp. nov., C. clavatus Mikó and Trietsch sp. nov., C. fianarantsoaensis Mikó and Trietsch sp. nov., C. lucidus Mikó and Trietsch sp. nov., C. macrocupula, Mikó and Trietsch sp. nov., C. madagascariensis Mikó and Trietsch sp. nov., C. missyhazenae Mikó and Trietsch sp. nov., C. pseudobabaiax Mikó and Trietsch sp. nov., and C. toliaraensis Mikó and Trietsch sp. nov. A fully illustrated identification key for Malagasy Conostigmus species and a Web Ontology Language (OWL) representation of the taxonomic treatment, including specimen data, nomenclature, and phenotype descriptions, in both natural and formal languages, are provided