Chapter 7
Parasitic Wasps: Chalcidoidea
and Ichneumonoidea
Hossein Lotfalizadeh and Abbas Mohammadi-Khoramabadi
7.1 Introduction
Chalcidoidea and Ichneumonoidea are the most diverse superfamilies of Hymenoptera. They contain the main groups of biological control agents of insect pests in both
agricultural and forest ecosystems throughout the world (Quicke 2015). They affect
immature stages of their hosts by using different biological traits (solitary and
gregarious, endoparasitoid and ectoparasitoid, koinobiont and idiobiont).
Iran constitutes a large part of the Iranian plateau. It covers an area of
1,623,779 km
2 which is located between the eastern Mediterranean area and the
Oriental region, and contains elements of rich fauna so the diverse topography and
climate of Iran, from cool and humid mountains (Alborz in the north, Zagros in the
west, North Khorasan in the northeast and Jebal Barez and Baluchistan mountains in
the south and southeast of Iran) to hot and dry deserts (Zehzad et al., 2002). Iran also
located at the crossroad of the Palaearctic, Afrotropical and Oriental biogeographic
realms; therefore, it is one of the most diverse regions of the world that this is
reflected in its insect fauna especially in parasitoid Hymenoptera or parasitoid wasps.
A review of available literature clearly shows that the majority of studies on
parasitoid wasps of Iran prior to the 1960s were undertaken by foreign experts and
that those by Iranian taxonomists mostly started more recently.
International projects and cooperating well-known specialists and professional
laboratories accelerated the process of identifying hymenopterous parasitoids and
H. Lotfalizadeh (*)
Plant Protection Research Department, East-Azarbaijan Agricultural and Natural Resources
Research & Education Center, AREEO, Tabriz, Iran
e-mail: hlotfalizadeh@areeo.ac.ir
A. Mohammadi-Khoramabadi
Department of Plant Production, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources of Darab, Shiraz
University, Shiraz, Fars, Iran
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
J. Karimi, H. Madadi (eds.), Biological Control of Insect and Mite Pests in Iran,
Progress in Biological Control 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63990-7_7
233
Parasitic Wasps: Chalcidoidea
and Ichneumonoidea
Hossein Lotfalizadeh and Abbas Mohammadi-Khoramabadi
7.1 Introduction
Chalcidoidea and Ichneumonoidea are the most diverse superfamilies of Hymenoptera. They contain the main groups of biological control agents of insect pests in both
agricultural and forest ecosystems throughout the world (Quicke 2015). They affect
immature stages of their hosts by using different biological traits (solitary and
gregarious, endoparasitoid and ectoparasitoid, koinobiont and idiobiont).
Iran constitutes a large part of the Iranian plateau. It covers an area of
1,623,779 km
2 which is located between the eastern Mediterranean area and the
Oriental region, and contains elements of rich fauna so the diverse topography and
climate of Iran, from cool and humid mountains (Alborz in the north, Zagros in the
west, North Khorasan in the northeast and Jebal Barez and Baluchistan mountains in
the south and southeast of Iran) to hot and dry deserts (Zehzad et al., 2002). Iran also
located at the crossroad of the Palaearctic, Afrotropical and Oriental biogeographic
realms; therefore, it is one of the most diverse regions of the world that this is
reflected in its insect fauna especially in parasitoid Hymenoptera or parasitoid wasps.
A review of available literature clearly shows that the majority of studies on
parasitoid wasps of Iran prior to the 1960s were undertaken by foreign experts and
that those by Iranian taxonomists mostly started more recently.
International projects and cooperating well-known specialists and professional
laboratories accelerated the process of identifying hymenopterous parasitoids and
H. Lotfalizadeh (*)
Plant Protection Research Department, East-Azarbaijan Agricultural and Natural Resources
Research & Education Center, AREEO, Tabriz, Iran
e-mail: hlotfalizadeh@areeo.ac.ir
A. Mohammadi-Khoramabadi
Department of Plant Production, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources of Darab, Shiraz
University, Shiraz, Fars, Iran
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
J. Karimi, H. Madadi (eds.), Biological Control of Insect and Mite Pests in Iran,
Progress in Biological Control 18, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63990-7_7
233