Biology:Cuckoo paper wasp
The name cuckoo paper wasp refers to a monophyletic species group of brood-parasitic paper wasps in the genus Polistes. This species group contains only four species; Polistes atrimandibularis, P. austroccidentalis, P. maroccanus, and P. semenowi,[1][2] all of them obligate social parasites of other Polistes species.
These species, three of which occur in Europe, were originally classified as the subgenus Sulcopolistes by Blüthgen in 1938, but such a group would render the subgenus Polistes paraphyletic, and is therefore no longer formally recognized.[2][3] Research using mitochondrial rRNA supports the view that these species descended from a common ancestor, and suggests that they are more closely related to Polistes nimpha and Polistes dominula (the latter being host to at least three of the four species) than to Polistes gallicus or Polistes biglumis,[4] thus constituting an example of Emery's rule.
References
- ↑ Schmid-Egger C, van Achterberg K, Neumeyer R, Morinière J, Schmidt S (2017) Revision of the West Palaearctic Polistes Latreille, with the descriptions of two species – an integrative approach using morphology and DNA barcodes (Hymenoptera, Vespidae). ZooKeys 713: 53-112. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.713.11335
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Carpenter, James M. "Phylogeny and Biogeography of Polistes." Natural History and Evolution of Paper-wasps. Ed. Stefano Turillazzi and Mary Jane. West-Eberhard. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996. 18-57. Print.
- ↑ Choudary M, Strassmann JE, Queller DC, Turillazzi S, Cervo R. (1994). “Social parasites in polistine wasps are monophyletic: implications for sympatric speciation”. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B, Biological Sciences 257 (1348): 31–35. doi: 10.1098/rspb.1994.0090
- ↑ Cervo, R. (2006). Polistes wasps and their social parasites: an overview. Ann. Zool. Fennici, 43, 531-549.
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