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Abstract
The new gregarious parasitoid Meteorus acerbiavorus sp. nov. (Hymenoptera, Braconidae) was reared from the cocoons of Acerbia alpina (Quensel) (Lepidoptera, Arctiidae) in north-western Finnish Lapland. This species belongs to Meteorus rubens (Nees) species group and differs from the most related M. rubens in the following features: the eyes densely setose; the median lobe of the mesoscutum, scutellum, mesopleuron, and the hind coxa entirely or at least partly rugulose-granulate or rugose-areolate and sometimes with granulation; the ovipositor subapically with distinct dorsal node; the ventral borders of the first metasomal tergum weakly separated by narrow space in its basal half; the colour of the body and legs mostly or entirely dark; the fore wing more or less darkened. Phylogenetic relationships among several Meteorus species close to M. rubens including new M. acerbiavorus were investigated based on DNA sequence fragments of the mitochondrial COI and the nuclear 28S rDNA genes. The discussions on the species groups of Meteorus, on distribution of Acerbia alpina in the Holarctic and on its known parasitoids are presented.
Acknowledgements
We are very thankful to Dr Juha Kytömaa, Dr Marko Mutanen, Mr Harry Lonka and Dr Guy Söderman for their valuable help with material of this new species of Meteorus, Dr Andy Boring (Department of Entomology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA) for the outgroup sequence in the molecular analysis, Dr Kevin Holston for language control and Dr Seraina Klopfstein for insights on Wolbachia (both from the NHRS Stockholm). Dr C. van Achterberg confirmed our beliefs that this Meteorus species was new to science. Harry Lonka photographed the adult, larva and the cocoons of Acerbia alpina, Pekka Malinen, Helsinki photographed the opened cocoon of Acerbia with parts of the cocoons of Meteorus inside, and both kindly permitted us to use these images. We are also thankful to Dr Gavin Broad (Natural History Museum, London) and anonymous referee for the critical review of our manuscript. This work was in part supported for the first author by a grant from The Swedish Taxonomy Initiative (Dha 167/08 1.4) and for the third author by the grants of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (N 10–04–00265) and the Presidium RAS Program “Origin and evolution of Biosphere, Subprogram II”.