Darwin wasps: a new name heralds renewed efforts to unravel the evolutionary history of Ichneumonidae
Seraina Klopfstein1
;Bernardo F. Santos2;Mark R. Shaw3;Mabel Alvarado4;Andrew M. R. Bennett5;Davide Dal Pos6;Madalene Giannotta7;Andres F. Herrera Florez8;Dave Karlsson9;Andrey I. Khalaim10;Alessandro R. Lima11;István Mikó12;Ilari E. Sääksjärvi13;So Shimizu14;Tamara Spasojevic2;Simon van Noort15;Lars Vilhelmsen16;Gavin R. Broad17
- Natural History Museum Basel, BIO, Augustinergasse 2, 4051 Basel, Switzerland
- Department of Entomology, National Museum of Natural History, 10th Street & Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20560, USA
- National Museums of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh EH1 1JF, U.K.
- Departamento de Entomología, Museo de Historia Natural, UNMSM. Av. Arenales 1256 Jesús María, Lima 14, Perú
- Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Canadian National Collection of Insects, Arachnids and Nematodes, 960 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0C6, Canada
- Department of Biology, University of Central Florida, 4110 Libra Dr. Rm 442, Orlando, FL 32816, USA
- ACEBB, The University of Adelaide, Australia
- Department of Biology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, Germany
- Station Linné, Ölands Skogsby, Färjestaden, Sweden
- Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg, Russia; and Universidad Autonoma de Tamaulipas, Cd. Victoria, Mexico
- Centro de Coleções Taxonômicas, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil
- UNH Collection of Insects and other Arthropods, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA
- Biodiversity Unit, 20014 University of Turku, Finland
- Laboratory of Insect Biodiversity and Ecosystem Science, Kobe University, Rokkodaicho 1–1, Nada, Kobe, Hyogo 657–8501, Japan
- Research and Exhibitions Department, South African Museum, Iziko Museums of South Africa, P.O. Box 61, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa; and Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cape Town, Private Bag, Rondebosch, 7701, South Africa
- Natural History Museum of Denmark, SCIENCE, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100, Denmark
- Department of Life Sciences, the Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, U.K
Abstract
The parasitoid wasp family Ichneumonidae is arguably one of the groups for which current knowledge lags most strongly behind their enormous diversity. In a five-day meeting in Basel (Switzerland) in June 2019, 22 researchers from 14 countries met to discuss the most important issues in ichneumonid research, including increasing the speed of species discovery, resolving higher-level relationships, and studying the radiation of these parasitoids onto various host groups through time. All agreed that it is time to advertise ichneumonid research more broadly and thereby attract young talents to this group for which specialists are sorely lacking, as well as increase public awareness about their exciting biology and ecological impact. In order to popularize the group, we here suggest a new vernacular name for the family, “Darwin wasps”, to reflect the pivotal role they played in convincing Charles Darwin that not all of creation could have been created by a benevolent god. We hope that the name catches on, and that Darwin wasps start buzzing more loudly across all disciplines of biology.