Testing the monophyly of Parapanteles Ashmead (Hymenoptera: Braconidae: Microgastrinae) and its role in a tritrophic neotropical system

Parapanteles Ashmead is a genus of wasp that represents one of three trophic levels in a tritrophic Neotropical system. This system is the subject of a collaborative study investigating cascading evolutionary patterns between a plant host genus (Piper), an herbivore (Eois), and parasitoids of Eois. The majority of specimens collected for this project come from long-term caterpillar rearing projects at permanent field stations in Costa Rica and Ecuador. We are increasing the geographic breadth of the project through collecting trips to additional sites throughout the Neotropics. To date, Parapanteles is the most commonly encountered genus of Eois-attacking parasitoids. However, monophyly of Parapanteles has never been adequately tested and preliminary molecular evidence suggests that Parapanteles may be paraphyletic. In order to strengthen our ability to test hypotheses about Parapanteles evolution in this tritrophic context, I am testing the monophyly of Parapanteles by constructing a multi-gene phylogeny that includes the majority of known and putative Parapanteles species and species from several hypothetically closely related genera. This phylogeny will be constructed from new and existing gene sequences.