Biodiversity of braconid fauna (Hym.: Ichneumonoidea: Braconidae) in Sirch region, Kerman province, Iran

Abstract

This study was intended to investigate the diversity of parasitoid wasps of the family Braconidae in different habitats dominated by the plant species Medicago sativa L., Mentha pulegium L., Sophora alopecuroides L. and Rubus sp. About 563 braconid specimens of four subfamilies, Macrocentrinae, Alysiinae, Braconinae and Rogadinae were collected between May and December 2014. Alfalfa (450 individuals) and pennyroyal (28 individuals) had the highest and the lowest collected specimens respectively. The similarity index of Morisita-Horn showed that sophora and alfalfa had the highest similarity in terms of collected genera. The higher density of alfalfa lowered the value of biodiversity (0.566) while the highest diversity occurred in sophora (339/1). CCA analysis showed that the differences in dispersion of the genera were due to differences of habitats. The Jackknife index suggested higher number of expected genera than collected ones.

Keywords

• biodiversity
• parasitoid wasps
• phenology
• environmental factors
• braconidae