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Romanov D.A.1*, Goryacheva I.I.1, Kosheleva O.V.2 2024. Aprostocetus neglectus (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) is the only species of Tetrastichinae wasps parasitizing the ladybird beetle Adalia bipunctata (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) // Invertebrate Zoology. Vol.21. No.2: 221–231 [in English].

1 Vavilov Institute of General Genetics RAS, Gubkina str. 3, Moscow 119333 Russiaю

2 All-Russian Institute of Plant Protection, Podbelskogo 3, St. Petersburg – Pushkin 196608 Russiaю

*Corresponding author

Denis Romanov dromanov_16@mail.ru  ORCID 0000-0003-3340-9278

Irina Goryacheva iigoryacheva@mail.ru  ORCID 0000-0003-1913-5987

Oksana Kosheleva koscheleva_o@mail.ru  ORCID 0000-0003-2459-6438

doi: 10.15298/invertzool.21.2.09

ABSTRACT. This paper presents the morphological characteristics of Aprostocetus neglectus wasps that emerged from the pupae of Adalia bipunctata and A. decempunctata ladybirds. According to literature, 3 species of Tetrastichinae wasps (A. neglectus, Oomyzus scaposus, and Tetrastichus epilachnae) can parasitize in A. bipunctata pupae; however, our findings indicate that A. neglectus parasitizes exclusively in A. bipunctata. It is a gregarious parasitoid that usually infects 2.3–6.9% of A. bipunctata ladybird’s pupae. Between 2 and 26 (typically 11–16) imagoes of A. neglectus can emerge from one pupa of A. bipunctata. The diversity of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of A. neglectus has also been studied, finding that genetic distances for the cox1 gene ranged from 0.2 to 4.9%, a range indicative of subspecies or close related species. Given the high mtDNA polymorphism observed across all studied populations of A. neglectus, there is no justification for distinguishing subspecies. We identified 26 mitochondrial haplotypes, yet found no haplotypes common across different populations suggesting reproductive isolation among A. neglectus populations. Imagoes of A. neglectus across the surveyed regions are infected with the symbiotic bacterium Wolbachia.

KEY WORDS: parasitism, mitochondrial DNA polymorphism, gene flow, Wolbachia.

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