Parasitic Ichneumonoidea on the horse chestnut leaf miner, Cameraria ohridella (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae) in Slovakia

Abstract

Parasitic Hymenoptera from the suprafamily Ichneumonoidea attacking the horse chestnut leafminer Cameraria ohridella Deschka & Dimic (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae) were studied in southwest Slovakia during 2000 and 2001. The search for such species resulted in the determination of eight ichneumonid species, Gelis agilis (Fabricius), Itoplectis alternans (Gravenhorst), I. clavicornis (Thompson), I. maculator (Fabricius), Scambus annulatus (Kiss), S. brevicornis (Gravenhorst), Zatypota percontatoria (Muller), Adelognathus sp. and a braconid Colastes braconius Haliday. The most abundant species was S. annulatus. All these species recorded are polyphagous and often facultative hyperparasitoids, except C. braconius, which departs from this norm in not being hyperparasitic. The presence of more diversified native parasitoids and hyperparasitoids from the Ichneumonoidea predicate a slow successive adaptation of the parasitoid fauna to the invasive host, Cameraria ohridella.