New distribution records for the rare genus Afrotremex Pasteels (Siricidae: Hymenoptera) and provision of interactive Lucid identification keys to species

Simon van Noort; Henri Goulet

doi:10.3897/BDJ.3.e7160

Biodiversity Data Journal : Taxonomic Paper

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Taxonomic Paper

New distribution records for the rare genus Afrotremex Pasteels (Siricidae: Hymenoptera) and provision of interactive Lucid identification keys to species

Simon van Noort^‡,§, Henri Goulet^|

‡ Natural History Department, Iziko South African Museum, Cape Town, South Africa

§ Biological Sciences Department, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

| Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa, Canada

Corresponding author:

Academic editor: Michael Kuhlmann

Received: 11 Nov 2015 | Accepted: 20 Nov 2015 | Published: 23 Nov 2015

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Citation: van Noort S, Goulet H (2015) New distribution records for the rare genus AfrotremexPasteels (Siricidae: Hymenoptera) and provision of interactive Lucid identification keys to species. Biodiversity Data Journal 3: e7160. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.3.e7160

Abstract

Background

Afrotremex Pasteels, 1951 is a rare genus of wasps endemic to the Afrotropical region, containing 6 species represented by 14 specimens. Specimens were previously only recorded from central Africa: Cameroon, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon and Uganda.

New information

Here we record two additional specimens housed in the Natural History Museum in London (BMNH), one of which is a male of A. xylophagus Goulet, 2014 collected in Ghana (previously Gold Coast). This record extends the known distribution of the genus into west Africa, and represents the second known male specimen for the genus. The other BMNH specimen is a female paratype of A. violaceus Pasteels, 1951 collected in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We provide high quality photographs of these additional two specimens. Images of all six known species are openly available online on WaspWeb. In addition we have developed interactive online Lucid Matrix and Lucid Phoenix identification keys to the species, which are openly available on WaspWeb at: http://www.waspweb.org/Siricoidea/Siricidae/Keys/index.htm

Keywords

Afrotremex, Afrotropical region, Africa, distribution, endemic, Hymenoptera, identification keys, Lucid matrix key, Siricidae, Siricoidea

Introduction

Afrotremex Pasteels 1951 is the only indigenous genus representative of Siricidae in the Afrotropical region (Goulet 2014, van Noort 2015). The other siricid genus present in the region is represented by the alien pest species, Sirex noctilio Fabricius, 1793, accidentally introduced to South Africa (Hurley et al. 2012, Taylor 1962, Tribe 1995, Tribe and Cillié 2004, van Noort and Picker 2011) from the western Palaeartic region on several independent occasions via Oceania and South America (Boissin et al. 2012). The recent revision of Afrotremex elevated the known species richness from two to six, with the description of four new species, based on 12 specimens examined in the collections of the Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest, Hungary (HNHM); Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale, Tervuren, Belgium (MRAC); National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA (USNM); Museum für Naturkunde der Humboldt Universität, Berlin, Germany (ZMHB) (Goulet 2014). This is a rare genus of wasps endemic to Africa that is poorly represented in world collections. The genus was previously only recorded from central Africa: Cameroon, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon and Uganda (Goulet 2014). Subsequently, two additional specimens were located in the collections of the Natural History Museum in London. We have photographed these additional two specimens and provide these images here as well as on WaspWeb. Images of all six known species were published in Goulet (2014) and are available online on WaspWeb (van Noort 2015). In addition we have developed interactive online Lucid Matrix and Lucid Phoenix identification keys to the species, based on the dichotomous keys published in Goulet (2014).

Materials and methods

Photography

Images were acquired using the Leica LAS 4.4 multi-stacking imaging system. The Leica system comprised a Leica® Z16 microscope and a Leica DFC450 Camera. Leica Application Suite V 4.4 software was used to manage image acquisition using an automated Z-stepper and merging of the image series into a single in-focus image. Images were post-processed in Adobe Photoshop and plates produced using Adobe illustrator. Specimens were imaged using the EntoVision multiple-focus imaging system to illustrate diagnostic characters.

Lucid identification key production

Online interactive keys were produced using Lucid 3.5 Builder and Lucid Phoenix Builder meeting the requirements of publishing both static and dynamic interactive keys under an open access model (Penev et al. 2009). Character matrices were generated and edited within the Lucid 3.5 Builder environment as input into the interactive Lucid matrix key production (Penev et al. 2009). Interactive dichotomous keys were developed within the Lucid Phoenix builder environment. All keys were illustrated using high quality annotated images, highlighting diagnostic characters. The images are integrated into the key above each couplet resulting in a user-friendly output. This key format circumvents the requirement of familiarity with morphological terminology associated with a particular taxonomic group, because the characters are visually illustrated and annotated making the keys usable by a wide range of end-users including the non-specialist.

List of depositories

BMNH: The Natural History Museum, London. Curators David Notton & Gavin Broad.

Data resources

Online identification keys

A static dichotomous identification key to species of Afrotremex was published in (Goulet 2014). We have developed interactive online Lucid Matrix and Lucid Phoenix identification keys to the species, based on the identification key published in Goulet (2014). These keys are available on WaspWeb at: http://www.waspweb.org/Siricoidea/Siricidae/Keys/index.htm. End users can choose between three different key formats depending on their personal preference. Although Lucid Phoenix keys are interactive keys they are still dichotomous and a choice needs to be made at each key couplet to continue. Lucid matrix keys, on the other hand, use a different approach where relevant states from multiple character features can be selected independently until identification is achieved. For more information concerning Lucid keys visit http://www.lucidcentral.org.

Taxon treatments

Afrotremex violaceus Pasteels, 1951

Material Download as CSV

Paratype:

scientificName:
Afrotremex violaceus Pasteels, 1951
; taxonomicStatus:
valid
; kingdom:
Animalia
; phylum:
Arthropoda
; class:
Insecta
; order:
Hymenoptera
; family:
Siricidae
; genus:
Afrotremex
; specificEpithet:
violaceus
; scientificNameAuthorship:
Pasteels, 1951
; country:
Democratic Republic of Congo
; locality:
Mayidi
; verbatimLocality:
Mayidi
; eventDate:
1942
; year:
1942
; verbatimEventDate:
1942
; individualCount:
1
; sex:
female
; lifeStage:
adult
; preparations:
pinned
; recordedBy:
Rev. P. Van Eyen
; disposition:
damaged
; identifiedBy:
J. Pasteels; Henri Goulet
; dateIdentified:
1951; 2015
; modified:
10/17/2015
; language:
en
; collectionID:
BMNH
; institutionCode:
BMNH
; basisOfRecord:
PreservedSpecimen

Description

See Goulet 2014. Photographs of the additional paratype female are provided in Figs 1, 2.

Figure 1.

Afrotremex violaceus. Paratype female (BMNH).

a: habitus, dorsal view.
b: habitus, lateral view.
c: head, antenna anterior view.
d: head, anterior view.
e: head, thorax, dorsal view.
f: head, thorax, lateral view.

Figure 2.

Afrotremex violaceus, paratype female (BMNH).

a: abdomen, dorsal view.
b: abdomen, lateral view.
c: terminal abdominal segments, dorsal view.
d: terminal abdominal segments, lateral view.
e: forewing and hind wing, dorsal view.
f: specimen data labels.

Distribution

Democratic Republic of Congo

Biology

Unknown.