Meeting Abstract
Parasitic Hymenoptera are one of the most successful and least understood insect radiations. Their extreme diversification is often linked to specialization on particular arthropod host species. The genus Spolas Ashmead 1901 is endemic to the Hawaiian Islands and is the only representative of the subfamily Anomaloninae in Hawaii. Although now largely restricted to relatively intact native habitat, it is one of the most abundant groups of endemic Ichneumonidae on the archipelago. Little attention has been given to Spolas since Ashmead (1901) and Perkins (1910) first described the fauna. There are currently eleven described species, however, characters used to identify species within this group are highly variable and descriptions of the fauna are surely incomplete. Here we use specimens collected throughout the Hawaiian archipelago over the past 15 years to construct a phylogeny and identify colonization patterns. We performed next-generation amplicon sequencing of two mitochondrial loci, cytochrome b (cyt b) and cytochrome oxidase I (COI), and two nuclear loci, ribosomal subunit 18s and wingless, to construct a phylogeny of Spolas. We examine phylogeographic patterns indicating how Spolas has diverged across the archipelago.
