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Hymenoptera ANTS; BEES; WASPS; SAWFLIES; HORNTAILS; ICHNEUMONS; MUD DAUBERS; COW KILLERS; CICADA KILLERS Life Insecta |
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IDnature guides |
Overview |
The insect order Hymenoptera includes the ants, bees, wasps, and sawflies.
Based on Stork's (1988) sampling of canopy trees in Borneo, tropical Hymenoptera, excluding ants,
rival beetles as the most speciose insect order. In most faunas , they constitute about 20% of insect species.
About 80% of Hymenoptera species are parasitoids, developing in or on a single host or single egg mass.
The parasitic Hymenoptera are important in terms of species richness, ecological impact, and economic importance
(LaSalle & Gauld, 1991; Gauld & Bolton, 1988; Waage & Greathead, 1986). Of an estimated 2.6 to 30 million insect species,
LaSalle & Gauld (1991) estimate that there are between 170,000 and 6 million parasitic Hymenoptera,
of which only 50,000 are described. They attack a wide range of hosts.
Parasitic Hymenoptera are often a dominant factor regulating arthropod populations,
and hence, significant components of most ecosystems.
Some control economic pests and have been used successfully in biological control programs (Greathead, 1986).
Diet breadth ranges from specialists attacking only one species to generalists attacking a broad range of hosts.
Relatively little is known about the community structure, geographic range, environmental requirements,
host specificity, and behavior of most species, particularly of tropical ones.
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Geographic distribution |
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