Juanita Rodriguez

CSIRO The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation · Australian National Insect Collection

Recent studies have delineated a large Nearctic Müllerian mimicry complex in Dasymutilla velvet ants. Psorthaspis spider wasps live in areas where this mimicry complex is found and are phenotypically similar to Dasymutilla. We tested the idea that Psorthaspis spider wasps are participating in the Dasymutilla mimicry complex and that they codiverged...

Pompilinae is one of the largest subfamilies of spider wasps (Pompilidae). Most pompilines are generalist spider predators at the family level, but some taxa exhibit ecological specificity (i.e., to spider-host guild). Here we present the first molecular phylogenetic analysis of Pompilinae, towards the aim of evaluating the monophyly of tribes and...

Spiders (Order Araneae) are massively abundant generalist arthropod predators that are found in nearly every ecosystem on the planet and have persisted for over 380 million years. Spiders have long served as evolutionary models for studying complex mating and web spinning behaviors, key innovation and adaptive radiation hypotheses, and have been in...

Accurate fossil identification has become increasingly relevant with the widespread use of phylogenetic divergence time estimation methods, which rely on fossil data to determine clade hard-minimum ages. Here we revise, diagnose and illustrate known spider wasp (Hymenoptera: Pompilidae) fossil species and place them within the latest Pompilidae phy...

With fossil representatives from the Silurian capable of respiring atmospheric oxygen, millipedes are among the oldest terrestrial animals, and likely the first to acquire diverse and complex chemical defenses against predators. Exploring the origin of complex adaptive traits is critical for understanding the evolution of Earth's biological complex...

We report the discovery of the first fossil of an Australian species of Pergidae, Baladi warru gen. et sp. n., found at McGraths Flat, a newly discovered Miocene Konservat-Lagerstätte in central New South Wales. Using morphological data from the well-preserved fossil, along with a previously published molecular dataset of 59 taxa and a newly genera...

Biological collections play a crucial role in our understanding of biodiversity and inform research in areas such as biosecurity, conservation, human health and climate change. In recent years, the digitisation of biological specimen collections has emerged as a vital mechanism for preserving and facilitating access to these invaluable scientific d...

The current taxonomic framework for describing new species of Psyllaephagus in Australia is largely intractable, mainly due to damaged or missing types and, as such, the genus has been neglected for almost 40 years. The repercussions of this include an absence of accurate host association records among Psyllaephagus and their hosts, several genera...

Aculeate hymenopterans use their venom for a variety of different purposes. The venom of solitary aculeates paralyze and preserve prey without killing it, whereas social aculeates utilize their venom in defence of their colony. These distinct applications of venom suggest that its components and their functions are also likely to differ. This study...

Pompilidae are a cosmopolitan family of aculeate parasitoid wasps with 24 extinct species. Here, we provide a new species description for an enigmatic species of Pepsinae: Paleogenia indomini Colombo & Waichert sp. nov. The new taxon is easily distinguished from congeners by having a long tibial spur, ~0.8× longer than the first tarsomere, and by t...

(1) Background: Sceliphron is a genus of sphecid wasps that build mud nests for reproduction. These wasps prey exclusively on spiders, and commonly inhabit human constructions. The nesting behaviour and prey selection of many Sceliphron species are well studied, but despite being a common insect in urban areas, Sceliphron formosum has never been co...

Alpine plant‐pollinator communities play an important role in the functioning of alpine ecosystems, which are highly threatened by climate change. However, we still have a poor understanding of how environmental factors and spatio‐temporal variability shape these communities. Here, we investigate what drives structure and beta diversity in a plant‐...

Lord Howe Island is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with a highly endemic biota and a history of recent species extinction. During the 2017 and 2018 Australian Geographic Society expeditions to Lord Howe Island, spider wasps in the genus Ctenostegus Haupt, 1930 were collected from various sites. A new species – C. hansoni sp. nov. – is described based...

Twenty two years after the first checklist of Neotropical Spider Wasps, a new list of genera and species is offered, including novelties in phylogeny and systematics, as well as reviews, synonyms and descriptions since the year 2000. Sixty three genera and 946 species of Pompilidae are listed.

Spider wasps (Hymenoptera: Pompilidae) cleptoparasites, such as Ceropales Latreille, have evolved the ability to steal the spiders from other pompilids. This behaviour is often observed with morphological adaptations that might mislead taxonomic decisions due to convergence. For instance, four subgenera, Bifidoceropales Wolf, Ceropales s. str., Hem...

The name “millipede” translates to a thousand feet (from mille “thousand” and pes “foot”). However, no millipede has ever been described with more than 750 legs. We discovered a new record-setting species of millipede with 1,306 legs, Eumillipes persephone , from Western Australia. This diminutive animal (0.95 mm wide, 95.7 mm long) has 330 segment...

Parasitoid wasps represent the plurality of venomous animals, but have received extremely little research in proportion to this taxonomic diversity. The lion’s share of investigation into insect venoms has focused on eusocial hymenopterans, but even this small sampling shows great promise for the development of new active substances. The family Pom...

Twenty-three fossil species within 14 genera have already been assigned to Pompilidae, five of these genera are extinct. The oldest described fossil species of spider wasp denotes a late Eocene origin of the group, although the family has been already reported from the early Eocene. Herein, we describe a new species of spider wasp from the Fur Form...

Background Culex ( Culex ) tritaeniorhynchus is an important vector of Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) affecting feral pigs, native mammals and humans. The mosquito species is widely distributed throughout Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe, and thought to be absent in Australia. Methods In February and May, 2020 the Medical Entomology unit of th...

This dataset is the current total holdings of all pinned bee primary type specimens held at the Australian National Insect Collection. ANIC is the World’s largest repository of Australian type specimens, currently holding about 22,000 primary types, which are the basis of every species description and the ultimate reference for species identificati...

The perception of cues and signals in visual, olfactory and auditory modalities underpins all animal interactions and provides crucial fitness-related information. Sensory organ morphology is under strong selection to optimize detection of salient cues and signals in a given signalling environment, the most well-studied example being selection on e...

Aim Cosmopolitan distributions have classically been explained by Pangaean vicariance. However, evidence of recently diverged cosmopolitan groups has re‐opened consideration on the processes involved. Our aim is to estimate the processes leading to the worldwide distribution of the kleptoparasitoid genus Ceropales. Location Worldwide. Taxon Cerop...

We treat the Australian spider wasp ‘Ctenocerini’, revising the systematics of Maurillus Smith, adding a new species Maurillus argenticapitis Pitts & Shimizu, sp. nov. and describing two new monobasic genera Maurilloides Pitts & Shimizu, gen. nov. based on Maurilloides nigrisoma Pitts & Shimizu, sp. nov. and Evansiclavelia Pitts, Rodriguez & Shimiz...

• Understanding how increasing risk of frequent and severe fires affects biodiversity and ecosystem function is important for effective conservation and recovery, but large knowledge gaps exist for many taxa in many parts of the world, especially invertebrates. • After Australia's 2019–2020 catastrophic bushfire disaster, estimates of biodiversity...

Citation: Mesibov R, Rodriguez J (2020) A new genus and species of narrow-range millipede (Diplopoda, Polydesmida, Dalodesmidae) from Tasmania, Australia. ZooKeys 966: 1-8. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.966.56308 Abstract Kebodesmus zonarius gen. nov. et sp. nov. is only known from a small area on the Great Western Tiers in northern Tasmania, Aus...

The Queensland fruit fly (Bactrocera tryoni; Q-fly) is an Australian endemic horticultural pest species, which has caused enormous economic losses. It has the potential to expand its range to currently Q-fly-free areas and poses a serious threat to the Australian horticultural industry. A large number of studies have investigated the correlation be...

The genus Minagenia Banks, 1934 is reported for the first time from Australia. A new species, M. lasallei Decker, Rodriguez & Pitts, sp. nov. (Australia: from Queensland to Tasmania), is described and illustrated. A key to the four species from the Australasian and Oriental regions is given. Three species are removed from Asian Minagenia: granulosa...

Three new species are added to the genus Epipompilus (Hymenoptera: Pompilidae) in Australia. Epipompilus mirabundus sp. nov., E. taree sp. nov., and E. namadgi sp. nov. are described and illustrated. A key to males of Epipompilus is provided. A novel association of Epipompilus and Sceliphron formosum (Hymenoptera: Sphecidae) is also documented. The...

Acroceridae, known as spider flies, are exclusive endoparasitoids of spiders. This study reports the first host association for Ogcodes pygmaeus White, 1914 (Diptera: Acroceridae) after discovering dead acrocerids and their host spiders inside Sceliphron formosum Smith, 1856 (Hymenoptera: Sphecidae) nests in ACT, Australia. From a total of 650 samp...

Two female Thraxan sp. (Diptera: Bombyliidae: Anthracinae) emerged from parasitised Pison simillimum Smith (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae) larvae found inside a Sceliphron formosum Smith (Hymenoptera: Sphecidae) mud wasps nest. Thraxan sp. larvae are endoparasites of P. simillimum larvae. The endoparasite pupates inside the host larva, kills it, and eme...

Body size is an integral functional trait that underlies pollination‐related ecological processes, yet it is often impractical to measure directly. Allometric scaling laws have been used to overcome this problem. However, most existing models rely upon small sample sizes, geographically restricted sampling and have limited applicability for non‐bee...

Bumble bees (Bombus Latrielle) are significant pollinators of flowering plants due to their large body size, abundant setae, and generalist foraging strategies. However, shared setal coloration patterns among closely and distantly related bumble bee species makes identification notoriously difficult. The advent of molecular genetic techniques has i...

GenBank accession numbers for B. fervidus SC specimens. ID # = unique identification number, Barcode = unique barcode identification number associated with S1 Table; Species = species assignment; Sub-genus = subgenus assignment, Th. = Thoracobombus, Psy. = Psythirus; Phenotype Group = phenotype assignment based on taxonomic keys; Locality = Locatio...

Database of specimens in the B. fervidus species complex summarizing genetic cluster assignment (K), phenotype/taxonomic assignment, and locality data. Specimen Voucher = unique specimen identification number; Sequence ID = unique specimen identification number associated with the GenBank accession number in S2 Table; Population ID = unique populat...

Body size is an integral functional trait that underlies pollination-related ecological processes, yet it is often impractical to measure directly. Allometric scaling laws have been used to overcome this problem. However, most existing models rely upon small sample sizes, geographically restricted sampling and have limited applicability for non-bee...

Las avispas cazadoras de arañas son una familia de himenópteros (Pompilidae) cuyas hembras cazan exclusivamente arañas para alimentar a su progenie, siendo siempre un huevo por araña paralizada. Hay una notable diversidad de tamaños, desde algunas pequeñas de pocos milímetros hasta las gigantescas Pepsis, cazadoras de tarántulas cuyas hembras puede...

Citation: Waichert C, Fernández F, Castro-Huertas V, Rodriguez J, Pitts JP (2017) More new records of spider wasps from Colombia (Hymenoptera, Pompilidae). ZooKeys 658: 89–95. https://doi. Abstract Aporinellus Banks, Austrochares Banks and Dicranoplius Haupt are new generic records for Colombia, as well as the species Dipogon ariel Banks, Evagetes...

Clustering/heatmap analysis depicting degree of shared data between each species pair Missing data reduction (matrix 3, Table 2). Degree of positive data overlap indicated by a color-coded heatmap (yellow = low, red = high); species order from right to left in the same order as listed from top to bottom on right side of figure. Lack of phylogenetic...

Clustering/heatmap analysis depicting degree of shared data between each species pair Missing data reduction (matrix 2, Table 2). Degree of positive data overlap indicated by a color-coded heatmap (yellow = low, red = high); species order from right to left in the same order as listed from top to bottom on right side of figure. Lack of phylogenetic...

Clustering/heatmap analysis depicting degree of shared data between each species pair BaCoCa reduced matrix (matrix 4, Table 2). Degree of positive data overlap indicated by a color-coded heatmap (yellow = low, red = high); species order from right to left in the same order as listed from top to bottom on right side of figure. Lack of phylogenetic...

Clustering/heatmap analysis depicting degree of shared data between each species pair Full spider ortholog matrix (matrix 1, Table 2). Degree of positive data overlap indicated by a color-coded heatmap (yellow = low, red = high); species order from right to left in the same order as listed from top to bottom on right side of figure. Lack of phyloge...

Clustering/heatmap analysis depicting degree of shared data between each species pair MARE matrix (matrix 7, Table 2). Degree of positive data overlap indicated by a color-coded heatmap (yellow = low, red = high); species order from right to left in the same order as listed from top to bottom on right side of figure. Lack of phylogenetic clustering...

Gene occupancy of matrix 3 (see Table 2) Colored squares represent partitions present in matrix for each OTU (y-axis, in descending order of OTU representation from bottom to top) and each partition or gene (x-axis, in descending order of partition representation from left to right).

Gene occupancy of matrix 7 (see Table 2) Colored squares represent partitions present in matrix for each OTU (y-axis, in descending order of OTU representation from bottom to top) and each partition or gene (x-axis, in descending order of partition representation from left to right).

Gene occupancy of matrix 5 (see Table 2) Colored squares represent partitions present in matrix for each OTU (y-axis, in descending order of OTU representation from bottom to top) and each partition or gene (x-axis, in descending order of partition representation from left to right).

Graph Level 2 Pie Chart of Molecular Function Gene Ontology molecular functions, levels 2 for OGs shared by Arthropod and Spider Core sets. Figures generated by Blast2GO analysis.

Latex source for supplemental material—including figure legends and Tables 1 and 2

Supplemental Table 3 Spider Core Ortholog Annotations. BLASTP (top hit, evalue 1E–10) of Spider Core OGs found in reference taxon (Acanthoscurria geniculata) against either (1) custom BLAST database of Stegodyphus mimosarum proteins downloaded from GenBank (BioProject Accession PRJNA222714; 27,135 protein sequences) or (2) nr, the non-redundant pro...

Clustering/heatmap analysis depicting degree of shared data between each species pair Arthropod core ortholog matrix (matrix 5, Table 2). Degree of positive data overlap indicated by a color-coded heatmap (yellow = low, red = high); species order from right to left in the same order as listed from top to bottom on right side of figure. Lack of phyl...

Gene occupancy of matrix 1 (see Table 2) Colored squares represent partitions present in matrix for each OTU (x-axis, in descending order of OTU representation from left to right) and each partition or gene (y-axis, in ascending order of partition representation).

Gene occupancy of matrix 2 (see Table 2) Colored squares represent partitions present in matrix for each OTU (x-axis, in descending order of OTU representation from left to right) and each partition or gene (y-axis, in ascending order of partition representation). Figure

Gene occupancy of matrix 4 (see Table 2) Colored squares represent partitions present in matrix for each OTU (y-axis, in descending order of OTU representation from bottom to top) and each partition or gene (x-axis, in descending order of partition representation from left to right).

Graph Level 3 Pie Chart of Molecular Function Gene Ontology molecular functions, level 3 for OGs shared by Arthropod and Spider Core sets. Figures generated by Blast2GO analysis.

Partition file for data matrix 1

Supplemental figures with legends (Table 2 omitted due to length)

Supplemental Table 2—232 pages

Phylogeographic studies frequently result in the elevation of subspecific taxa to species given monophyly, or the synonymy of subspecies that are not monophyletic. However, given limited or incongruent datasets, retention of subspecies can be useful to describe hypothesized incipient species or to illustrate interesting biological phenomena driving...

Spiders (Order Araneae) are massively abundant generalist arthropod predators that are found in nearly every ecosystem on the planet and have persisted for over 380 million years. Spiders have long served as evolutionary models for studying complex mating and web spinning behaviors, key innovation and adaptive radiation hypotheses, and have been in...

Spider wasps (Hymenoptera: Pompilidae) constitute a monophyletic family supported by numerous morphologicaland behavioural traits. The subfamilial and tribal classifications, however, have a history of conflicting and confusingdesignations and nomenclature. Here, we reconstruct a molecular phylogeny of Pompilidae from Bayesianand maximum-likelihood...

Spider wasps had long been proposed to originate in the mid-Cretaceous based on the Burmese amber fossil Bryopompilus interfector Engel and Grimaldi, 2006. We performed a morphological examination of this fossil and determined it does not belong to Pompilidae or any other described hymenopteran family. Instead, we place it in the new family Bryopom...

Pompilinae are one of the largest groups of spider wasps. Their phylogeny has never been studied with molecular data. Most pompilines are generalist at the spider host family level, but there is some specificity at the ecological level (i. e. host guild). We aimed to test the monophyly of Pompilinae tribes and genera. We also aimed to test whether...

Aim Our aim was to determine the age and area of origin of the genera of the Aporini tribe of spider wasps by studying its historical biogeography. We also tested the fit of several hypotheses concerning the processes underlying the widespread distribution of this group. Location The Holarctic and Neotropics. Methods A phylogeny of 44 Aporini tax...

Two new species of pepsine spider wasps, Calopompilus setaerotundus Waichert & Pitts, sp. nov. and Priocnemis (Umbripennis) wasbaueri Waichert & Pitts, sp. nov., are described and illustrated. Calopompilus Ashmead, Priocnemis Schiødte and sixteen additional species are newly reported from Honduras. A new combination is proposed for Ageniella fragil...

New records of genera and species of spider wasps (Hymenoptera: Pompilidae) from Colombia are provided. Agenioideus, Cryptocheilus, Evagetes, Mystacagenia, and Xerochares are newly recorded genera from Colombia. Nineteen species are first recorded from Colombia: Aimatocarevitrea (Fox); Ageniellaazteca (Cameron); Ageniellacurtipinus (Cameron); Ageni...

The taxonomy of the Antillean genus Drepanaporus Bradley (Pompilidae) is problematic because of sexual dimorphism and nearly uniform morphology of males across species. Species limits are not well understood, and sexes are not properly associated in all species. In this study, we reassessed morphology, and collected novel molecular data for the pur...