"Overall, this is a highly valuable compendium of known information, as well as currently unanswered questions, concerning ichneumonoid wasps.... Quicke is to be congratulated for producing a standard work that I, for one, will be consulting for a long time." (American Entomologist, 2016)
"This is certainly a field with many pitfalls, but there is hardly a better guide through it than Professor Quicke." (International Journal of Environmental Studies, 9 March December 2015)
"It sounds like a backhanded compliment to say that this is the best book of its kind, when I have already said that it is the only book of its kind. However, The Braconid and Ichneumonid Parasitoid Wasps goes beyond being the best of a limited field – it is a truly impressive assemblage of information on an intriguing and important group of insects. I hope that it inspires more people to work in the field." (Bulletin de la Société d'entomologie du Canada, 2015)
The Ichneumonoidea is a vast and important superfamily of parasitic wasps, with some 60,000 described species and estimated numbers far higher, especially for small-bodied tropical taxa. The superfamily comprises two cosmopolitan families - Braconidae and Ichneumonidae - that have largely attracted separate groups of researchers, and this, to a considerable extent, has meant that understanding of their adaptive features has often been considered in isolation. This book considers both families, highlighting similarities and differences in their adaptations.
The classification of the whole of the Ichneumonoidea, along with most other insect orders, has been plagued by typology whereby undue importance has been attributed to particular characters in defining groups. Typology is a common disease of traditional taxonomy such that, until recently, quite a lot of taxa have been associated with the wrong higher clades. The sheer size of the group, and until the last 30 or so years, lack of accessible identification materials, has been a further impediment to research on all but a handful of ‘lab rat’ species usually cultured initially because of their potential in biological control.
New evidence, largely in the form of molecular data, have shown that many morphological, behavioural, physiological and anatomical characters associated with basic life history features, specifically whether wasps are ecto- or endoparasitic, or idiobiont or koinobiont, can be grossly misleading in terms of the phylogeny they suggest. This book shows how, with better supported phylogenetic hypotheses entomologists can understand far more about the ways natural selection is acting upon them.
This book covers the same areas as Parasitic Wasps (Springer, 1997) (behaviour, physiology, development, anatomy, venoms, sex, ecology and evolution), but they have been brought up to date in this book (much new data has become available over the intervening years). This new book also focuses on this superfamily with which the author has great familiarity and provides a detailed coverage of each subfamily, emphasising anatomy, taxonomy and systematics, biology, as well as pointing out the importance and research potential of each group.
Fossil taxa are included and it also has sections on biogeography, global species richness, culturing and rearing and preparing specimens for taxonomic study. The book highlights areas where research might be particularly rewarding and suggests systems/groups that need investigation. The author provides a large compendium of references to original research on each group. This book is an essential workmate for all postgraduates and researchers working on ichneumonoid or other parasitic wasps worldwide. It will stand as a reference book for a good number of years, and while rapid advances in various fields such as genomics and host physiological interactions will lead to new information, as an overall synthesis of the current state it will stay relevant for a long time.
Brief TOC: Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Adult external morphology; Chapter 3 The ovipoistor and ovipositor sheaths; Chapter 4 Internal and reproductive anatomy; Chapter 5 Immature stages; Chapter 6 Idiobionts, koinobionts and other life history traits; Chapter 7 Sex, courtship and mating; Chapter 8 Host location, assessment and associative learning; Chapter 9 Overcoming host immune reaction and physiological interactions with hosts; Chapter 10 Convergent adaptations; Chapter 11 Overview of Ichneumonoidea: relationships and systematics; Chapter 12 Phylogeny and systematics of the Braconidae; Chapter 13 Phylogeny and systematics of the Ichneumonidae; Chapter 14 Ecology; Chapter 15 Local and global patterns in diversity; Chapter 16 Collecting and rearing Ichneumonoidea; Chapter 17 Epilogue.
From the Back Cover
The Ichneumonoidea is a vast and important superfamily of parasitic wasps, with some 60,000 described species and estimated numbers far higher, especially for small-bodied tropical taxa. The superfamily comprises two cosmopolitan families - Braconidae and Ichneumonidae - that have largely attracted separate groups of researchers, and this, to a considerable extent, has meant that understanding of their adaptive features has often been considered in isolation. This book considers both families, highlighting similarities and differences in their adaptations.
The classification of the whole of the Ichneumonoidea, along with most other insect orders, has been plagued by typology whereby undue importance has been attributed to particular characters in defining groups. Typology is a common disease of traditional taxonomy such that, until recently, quite a lot of taxa have been associated with the wrong higher clades. The sheer size of the group, and until the last 30 or so years, lack of accessible identification materials, has been a further impediment to research on all but a handful of ‘lab rat’ species usually cultured initially because of their potential in biological control.
New evidence, largely in the form of molecular data, have shown that many morphological, behavioural, physiological and anatomical characters associated with basic life history features, specifically whether wasps are ecto- or endoparasitic, or idiobiont or koinobiont, can be grossly misleading in terms of the phylogeny they suggest. This book shows how, with better supported phylogenetic hypotheses entomologists can understand far more about the ways natural selection is acting upon them.
This book covers the same areas as Parasitic Wasps (Springer, 1997) (behaviour, physiology, development, anatomy, venoms, sex, ecology and evolution), but they have been brought up to date in this book (much new data has become available over the intervening years). This new book also focuses on this superfamily with which the author has great familiarity and provides a detailed coverage of each subfamily, emphasising anatomy, taxonomy and systematics, biology, as well as pointing out the importance and research potential of each group.
Fossil taxa are included and it also has sections on biogeography, global species richness, culturing and rearing and preparing specimens for taxonomic study. The book highlights areas where research might be particularly rewarding and suggests systems/groups that need investigation. The author provides a large compendium of references to original research on each group. This book is an essential workmate for all postgraduates and researchers working on ichneumonoid or other parasitic wasps worldwide. It will stand as a reference book for a good number of years, and while rapid advances in various fields such as genomics and host physiological interactions will lead to new information, as an overall synthesis of the current state it will stay relevant for a long time.
Brief TOC: Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Adult external morphology; Chapter 3 The ovipoistor and ovipositor sheaths; Chapter 4 Internal and reproductive anatomy; Chapter 5 Immature stages; Chapter 6 Idiobionts, koinobionts and other life history traits; Chapter 7 Sex, courtship and mating; Chapter 8 Host location, assessment and associative learning; Chapter 9 Overcoming host immune reaction and physiological interactions with hosts; Chapter 10 Convergent adaptations; Chapter 11 Overview of Ichneumonoidea: relationships and systematics; Chapter 12 Phylogeny and systematics of the Braconidae; Chapter 13 Phylogeny and systematics of the Ichneumonidae; Chapter 14 Ecology; Chapter 15 Local and global patterns in diversity; Chapter 16 Collecting and rearing Ichneumonoidea; Chapter 17 Epilogue.
About the Author
Donald L. J. Quicke is currently Visiting Professor at the Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. He graduated from Oxford University with a degree in zoology and after doctoral and postdoctoral work on snail neurophysiology, sea anemone ecology and spider venoms, made parasitic wasps, and especially the ichneumonoid wasp family Braconidae, his main love and research interest. He held a lectureship at Sheffield University, moved to Imperial College London in 1993 and held a joint post between them and the Natural History Museum, London, until retiring in 2013 to live in Thailand. He was made Professor of Systematics in 2008. He has travelled widely collecting and studying parasitic wasps, especially in Africa. Over the past years he has described more than 560 new species and 76 new genera, including a number of fossil taxa, as well as making extensive studies of functional anatomy parasitic wasp ovipositors which are of enormous biological importance. A lot of his recent work has concerned global diversity estimation and patterns.
Wow! eBook
