Diversity of eulophid wasps (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) from Wang Kelian, Malaysia

Abstract

Diversity of (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) from two locations at Wang Kelian Park were studied throughout four different months, between May and August 2010. Wang Kelian Park comprise about 1000-hectare on the Nakawan range, the longest limestone hill range in Malaysia that is rich in fauna, including birds, mammals and reptiles. Within the Wang Kelian State Park is a semi-decidous forest, a rare find in Malaysia. Many outstanding characteristics of Wang Kelian Park make it an ideal site for in situ nature conservation and study on the diversity of the organisms. The main purpose of this study is to examine the diversity of the parasitoid wasps; Eulophidae at Wang Kelian Park in four consecutive months starting May 2010 to August 2010. Sampling technique used in this study was Malaise trap and the identification is up to morphospecies to different subfamilies. To measure the diversity of Eulophidae wasps up to the subfamilies level, the Shannon Diversity index, H' was used as the diversity index. There were two indispensable parameters to measure diversity index, including evenness index (E) and Margalef's richness index (R). A total of 185 individuals were collected from 30 morphospecies in four subfamilies: Eulophinae, Entedoninae, Tetratishinae and Euderinae. The highest subfamily collected was Eulophinae followed by Entedoninae, Tetratishinae and Euderinae. Diversity values between the months did not show any significant effect (p>0.05). The study is expected to be preliminary on Eulophidae at Wang Kelian and informative to the further study on diversity of Eulophidae which is the family that is able to be used as biological control agent on pests.