Review of Afrotropical sceliotracheline parasitoid wasps (Hymenoptera, Platygastridae)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The platygastrid subfamily Sceliotrachelinae, while represented globally by numerous biologically important taxa, is generally poorly known for the Afrotropical region. It contains a number of species of economic significance, including some that attack hemipteran pests of citrus. Here we review the taxonomy of the subfamily for the region. We revise two enigmatic, endemic South African genera,AfrisoliaMasner and Huggert andSceliotrachelusBrues, providing illustrated identification keys to the species.Afrisolia anyskopvan Noort & Lahey,sp. nov.,Afrisolia quaggavan Noort & Lahey,sp. nov.andAfrisolia robertsonivan Noort & Lahey,sp. nov.are described for this previously monotypic genus.Sceliotracheluswas previously known only from the two male type specimens ofSceliotrachelus braunsiBrues. Two new species,Sceliotrachelus midgleyivan Noort,sp. nov.andSceliotrachelus karooensisvan Noort,sp. nov., are described from the Eastern and Western Cape, respectively. The female ofS. braunsiis described for the first time and additional distribution records for the species are documented. The putatively basal species,S. karooensis, exhibits less derived morphology than the highly apomorphicS. braunsi, necessitating reassessment of the limits of the genus. The exceptional morphology exhibited by species ofSceliotrachelusis hypothesized to be an adaptation to living in leaf-litter. We also revise the Old World species ofParabaeusKieffer, describing a remarkable new species,Parabaeus nasutusvan Noort,sp. nov., and provide an illustrated and updated key to the species.FidiobiaAshmead is currently represented in Africa by seven described species to which we addFidiobia celeritasvan Noort & Lahey,sp. nov., a charismatic new species from South Africa. The distribution of the genusIsoliais expanded to include new country records forI. hispanicaBuhl (Kenya) and an undescribed species from Madagascar. To facilitate the ongoing exploration and documentation of the African platygastrid fauna, an identification key to Afrotropical sceliotracheline genera and high resolution images of exemplar species for the remaining genera are provided. An overview of known species richness and biology is also included. All images presented here as well as additional images and interactive online Lucid identification keys are available on WaspWeb at http://www.waspweb.org.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.006 | 0.005 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".