Abstract
Gasteruption is a genus of parasitic inquilines of bees and wasps. They are distributed worldwide, with 21 species occurring in Central Europe. The knowledge of the ecology of this genus is not very good, only their host preferences were summarised. We studied the phenology and habitat requirements of this group based on records from museums and private collections. All species occur as adults between May and September with a main fly period from June to August—only Gasteruption merceti activates earlier, in May and June. Gasteruption phragmiticola is the only wetland specialist among all species of the studied region. Gasteruption subtile occurs in forest habitats at higher altitudes, while other species prefer lower altitudes between 100 and 500 m a.s.l. Several species prefer steppic habitats on southern hill slopes (G. diversipes, G. freyi, G. hastator, G. hungaricum, G. paternum). Gasteruption erythrostomum, G. jaculator and G. minutum occur mainly in semi-open or forest habitats. Four species (G. assectator, G. caucasicum, G. nigritarse and G. tournieri) are very common and numerous within the studied region and do not have any specific habitat preferences. All species are dependent on the distribution of their hosts and currently occur in habitats previously uninhabited by them, which was documented especially for G. nigrescens, which spreads to wetland habitats to follow its hosts.
Implications for insect conservation
The knowledge on the ecological preferences of all species is the keystone for the conservation of Gasteruption. Many species highly prefer regionally endangered habitat types (steppic grasslands, open sandy habitats, alpine forest margins or wetlands) so their conservation should be connected with the conservation of their habitats. Further, most of these endangered species showed a kind of ecological plasticity in habitat preferences, which is a good news for their conservation.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank to all colleagues and museum curators, who shared the material or faunistic records with us, namely National Museum, Praha, Czech Republic (curator Jan Macek), Moravian Museum, Brno, Czech Republic (curator Igor Malenovský), Silesian Museum, Opava, Czech Republic (curator Jindřich Roháček), Museum of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czech Republic (curator Zdeněk Kletečka), Museum of eastern Bohemia, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic (curator Miroslav Mikát), Geographic Museum, Olomouc, Czech Republic (curator Miloš Krist), Crop Research Institute, Praha, Czech Republic (curator Kamil Holý), Oberösterreichisches Museum, Linz, Austria (curator Martin Schwarz), Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, Austria (curator Manuela Vizek), Zoologische Staatssammlung München, Germany (curator Stefan Schmidt), Naturhistorisches Museum bei Humboldt Universität Berlin, Germany (curator Stefanie Krause), Slovak National Museum, Bratislava, Slovakia (curator Vladimír Jánský) and Hungarian National Museum, Budapest, Hungary (curator Zoltán Vas). Special thanks belong to Lucie Dernerová (Hradec Králové, Czech Republic) for the help with sorting data and preparing the results and Stuart Roberts (Salisbury, UK) for the help with the English language. This study was supported by the Excellence Research Project of University of Hradec Králové Nr. 2101/2022.
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This work was funded by Univerzita Hradec Králové, Excellence Research Project Nr. 2210/2022.
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PB: gathered the data and wrote the main part of the manuscript text, prepared the tables, JH: did the statistical analyses, prepared the figures and wrote part of the text. Both authors reviewed the manuscript.
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Supplementary file2 (PDF 440 KB) Proportions (in %) of Gasteruption species in various habitat types. The bar of habitat with largest proportion of individuals is in red
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Bogusch, P., Horák, J. Habitat preferences and phenology of carrot wasps (Hymenoptera: Gasteruptiidae, Gasteruption) in Central Europe. J Insect Conserv 28, 417–426 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-024-00549-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-024-00549-4