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

研究生约翰·赫拉蒂提议收集和研究印度-太平洋地区黄蜂科的代表，这种黄蜂科由寄生在蚂蚁上的物种组成。该群体在世界各地都有分布(尽管新西兰没有)。拟议的项目将导致对旧世界的六项通用修订和对Orasminae部落属的分析。进化树将从幼虫和成虫的形态数据中构建，然后与地理分布和蚂蚁宿主偏好进行比较。分析的最后一步将表明，黄蜂是专门针对不同的蚂蚁宿主，还是在寄生于蚂蚁捕食的不同昆虫群后与蚂蚁联系在一起。拟议的项目将增加关于一个重要的全球集团的关键新信息，从而开启对其多样化和分销历史的研究。这项研究的一个引人注目的方面是，它对我们理解宿主-寄生虫共同进化具有更广泛的意义。

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.