New genus of parasitoid wasp dedicated to ATREE

Parasitoids are the most important natural enemies of other insects, and humans exploit this behaviour for biological control of crop pests

A new genus of Braconid wasp has been named ‘Atree’, after the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), a leading research institution and environmental think tank based in Bengaluru. This is said to be the first time in India that an institute has an eponymous insect genus.

The development comes with the discovery of a new species of wasp, Atree rajathae and two other already known species. The newly described species is a parasitoid wasp. An ATREE statement explained that parasitoids are the most important natural enemies of other insects, and humans exploit this behaviour for the biological control of crop pests. 

“The other two known Taiwanese species Baeacis improcerus and Baeacis validus are also transferred to the new genus, considering their morphological affinities to Atree … The new genus belongs to the tribe Diospilini of subfamily Brachistinae. The tribe Diospilini consists of 13 genera and 125 species which are mostly distributed in the Palaearctic region. There are only six species known from the Indomalayan realm and Atree rajathae is the first report of the tribe Diosplini from India,” it said. 

The discovery of the new genus was facilitated by researchers from ATREE in collaboration with the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, The Netherlands for comparative studies with other braconids. 

“A large number of insects were collected about a decade and a half ago to address large gaps in insect inventory in the Western Ghats. These collections were sorted to family and preserved in the ATREE Insect Museum (AIMB). Recently, owing to the pandemic, ATREE entomologists were largely confined to their laboratory and analysed the parasitic Hymenopterans in these old collections. So far, they have sorted out more than 80 potentially new species from the Western Ghats, one of the global biodiversity hotspots. In 2021 ATREE entomologists described as many as 20 new species of insects from these collections,” the release added.

Priyadarsanan Dharma Rajan, the senior author of the paper, was quoted as saying, “Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve is well known for its plant diversity and high levels of endemism. When we conducted a survey of dung beetles in the Shendurney wildlife sanctuary, which is part of the Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve, it yielded more than 80 species or 20% of India’s dung beetle fauna. A thorough exploration for the insect diversity of Western Ghats can bring out not only a large number of new taxa, but many interesting stories revealing the biogeography of the region, as well the importance of insects in sustaining life on earth.” 

Kamal Bawa, President of ATREE said it is appropriate that as ATREE celebrates its 25th anniversary, the newly discovered genus is named after the institute.