Study on faunistic, biodiversity and host rates of (Hym., Aphelinidae) in some parts of Markazi and Lorestan provinces, Iran

Subject Areas : entomology and othea arthropods

N. Abolmasoumi ¹ (Department of Entomology, Islamic Azad University, Arak Branch, Iran)
A. A. Talebi ² (Department of Entomology, College of Agriculture, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran)
E. Rakhshani ³ (Department of Plant Protection, College of Agriculture, University of Zabol, Zabol, Iran)
H. Lotfalizadeh ⁴ (Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Center of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran)

Received: 2009-10-29 Accepted : 2010-04-08 Published : 2010-05-22

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Abstract :

The family Aphelinidae belongs to the superfamily Chalcidoidea of Hymenoptera. Various species of theses wasps are parasitoids of different stages of Hemiptera especially Coccoidea and Aleyrodoidea. These parasitoid wasp emerged from soft scales (Eulecanium tiliae, Sphaerolecanium prunastri and Didesmococcus unifasciatus), armored scales (Childaspis asiatica and Lepidosaphes ulmi) on fruit trees of Markazi and Lorestan provinces, Iran and two whiteflies (Trialeurodes vaporariorum and Aleyrodes singularis) on the grasses and ornamental plants in Markazi province in laboratory conditions. A total of five parasitic wasps were collected and identified: Coccophagus lycimnia Walker, 1939 Aphytis mytilaspidis (Le Baron, 1870) Encarsia inaron Walker, 1839 E. formosaGahan, 1924 According to the available literature, Coccobius varicornis (Howard, 1881) is recorded from Iran for the first time. Morphological characters of the new record species, parasitism rate, similarity index and Simpson's index for different regions were calculated and discussed.