Diapriidae, Haliday, 1833

Shimbori, Eduardo Mitio, Costa, Valmir Antonio & Zucchi, Roberto Antonio, 2020, Annotated checklist and illustrated key to parasitoids (Hymenoptera: Diapriidae Eulophidae and Pteromalidae) of fruit flies (Diptera, Tephritidae) in Brazil, Zootaxa 4858 (1), pp. 53-70 : 57

Family Diapriidae (Hymenoptera, Diaprioidea)

This family comprises about 2,300 species in 197 genera ( Johnson 1992; Arias 2003). Most of them are pupal parasitoids on dipterans and are frequently associated with fungi ( Masner 2006). Diapriidae is subdivided into four subfamilies. The two species ( Co. haywardi and Tr. anastrephae ) that are parasitoids of fruit-infesting tephritids in Brazil belong to the subfamily Diapriinae . An illustrated key to genera of the New World Diapriinae , based mostly on Masner & García (2002), is available online ( Yoder et al. 2007). Both the genera Coptera and Trichopria are highly speciose, and a revision of the Neotropical fauna is necessary ( Ovruski et al. 2000).

Within the parasitoid species treated here, the Diapriinae are exceptional in their parasitism strategy, because, as opposed to most pupal parasitoids, they are endophagous and, in the few studies observing oviposition stage, allow further development of their hosts (i.e. koinobionts) ( Sivinski et al. 1998, Masner 2006). These parasitoids prefer young pupae and are subject to most of the same physiological constraints as other koinobionts, because the pupa is not permanently paralyzed but continues to develop for some time before the parasitoid finally kills it ( Sivinski et al. 1998). Most species of Diapriinae recorded on fruit-flies are stenophagous, specialists on species of a single family of Diptera (Ovrurski et al. 2000; Sivinski & Aluja 2012). There is evidence that some species of Coptera could be oligophagous, or even monophagous, using one or a very few species of Rhagoletis as hosts ( Forbes et al. 2012). The foraging strategy of pupal parasitoids (i.e., searching and ovipositing in puparia in the soil) is complementary to that of the larval parasitoids, and an interesting trait for biological control when allied with a narrow host range (e.g. Wang et al. 2016), especially when the prey larvae in the fruit are nearly inaccessible to larval parasitoids.