Dissertation Research: Phylogenetic Relationships of the Eucharitidae (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea)

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Graduate student John Heraty proposes to collect and study Indo-Pacific representatives of the wasp family Eucharitidae, composed of species that are parasitic on ants. The group displays a world-wide distribution (though is absent from New Zealand). The proposed project will result in six Old World generic revisions and an analysis of the genera of the tribe Oraseminae. Evolutionary trees will be constructed from data on larval and adult morphology, and then compared with geographic distributions and ant-host preferences. This final step in the analysis will suggest whether the wasps specialized on different ant hosts, or became associated with ants after being parasites on the different groups of insects on which the ants preyed. The proposed project will add critical new information on an important world-wide group, thereby opening up research into their history of diversification and distribution. A compelling aspect of the study is the wider implication for our understanding of host-parasite coevolution.