J. Exp. Zool. India Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 877-889, 2019 www.connectjournals.com/jez ISSN 0972-0030 LIST OF PARASITIC HYMENOPTERANS RECORDED FROM RICE ECOSYSTEMS OF INDIA J. Alfred Daniel* and K. Ramaraju Department of Agricultural Entomology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore - 641 003, India. *e-mail :
[email protected] (Received 20 February 2019; Accepted 17 June 2019) ABSTRACT : An inventory of the diversity of hymenopteran parasitoids associated with rice agroecosystem of Indian subcontinent has revealed 377 species recorded so far. Of all the 377 species, only 6 per cent (22 Nos.) is represented by Aculeata and 94 per cent (355 Nos.) are Parasitica. These parasitoids fall under 206 genera belonging to 11 super families and 28 families. The eleven super families were, Apoidea (1), Chrysidoidea (16), Vespoidea (5), Ceraphronoidea (3), Chalcidoidea (171), Cynipoidea (2), Diaproidea (6), Evanoidea (3), Incheumonoidea (112), Platygastroidea (57) and Prototrupoidea (1). A total of 85 species of parasitoids were added in the list from the present study itself and 136 species were added in the existing check list by Dey et al (1999), which suggest that there is much scope in the aspect of studying the diversity of parasitic hymenopterans associated with rice ecosystems of India and to exploit them as biological control agents to make Indian agriculture less dependent on insecticides. Key words : Parasitic hymenopterans, rice ecosystems, insecticides. INTRODUCTION MATERIALS AND METHODS Rice fields harbour a rich and varied fauna than any Though the inventory was principally supported by other agricultural crop (Heckman, 1979; Fritz et al, 2011). the Thompson’s catalogue (1953) and was framed on the The fauna is dominated by micro, meso and macro basis of Dey et al (1999), information from many other arthropods inhabiting soil, water and vegetation sub- primary and secondary sources of information retrieval habitats of the rice fields.