Albert T. Finnamore. 1998. Aculeate Wasps in Smith, I.M., and G.G.E. Scudder, eds. Assessment of species diversity in the Montane Cordillera Ecozone. Burlington: Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network, 1998.

ACULEATE WASPS

(Excluding Formicidae)

Albert T. Finnamore
Provincial Museum of Alberta
12845-102 Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta
T5N 0M6

INTRODUCTION

The Aculeata or stinging wasps and bees (aculeate wasps = Aculeata minus the bees) includes an estimated 92 000 species worldwide, distributed on all continents except Antarctica. Diversity in the Aculeata is primarily tropical with attenuation of species numbers as altitude or latitude increase. Although representatives of all three superfamilies, Chrysidoidea, Vespoidea and Apoidea, occur in Canada, they amount to about 2% of the estimated world fauna and demonstrate the attenuation of species diversity associated with higher latitudes.

Species in the Aculeata are united by the apotypic feature of an ovipositor modified to transmit venom rather than functioning as an egg positioning device (Gauld and Bolton 1988). They exhibit an array of behaviour and life history that is perhaps more remarkable than that encountered in any other group of Hymenoptera. Life-history strategies range from that of parasitoid to cleptoparasitic, predatory, and pollen-feeding and encompass solitary, subsocial and social behaviour. Parasitoids are insects in which the larval stage develops by feeding on or within an arthropod host; the host is almost invariably killed. In the Hymenoptera there are two primary parasitoid strategies termed idiobiont and koinobiont, the former arresting host development upon parasitism, the latter allowing host development to continue sometime after parasitism (Gauld and Bolton 1988). Predators, most aculeate wasps, are extreme examples of idiobiont ectoparasitoids where one or more prey individuals are provisioned for larval development. Cleptoparasites are insects in which the larvae develop by feeding on provisions sequestered for the development of larvae of another insect species.

Predatory aculeate wasps nest in a number of different substrates including sand, soil, gravel, decaying wood, stems, twigs, and galls, or they construct mud or paper nests. Pre-existing cavities in any of the preceding including abandoned insect borings in wood or abandoned mud nests, may also be used as nest sites.

TABLE OF CONTENTS