Parasitoid wasps (hymenoptera)

Hymenoptera is one of the four hyperdiverse holometabolic insect orders and its members show a wide range of life history features. However, the two most prominent and, maybe, successful features of the order are parasitism (e.g., Ichneumonidae, Braconidae, and Chalcidoidea) and social behavior (ants, bees, and wasps). This chapter focuses on one of the genetically and cytologically best-studied hymenopteran taxon the parasitoid genus Nasonia (Chalcidoidea), and discusses cytological research associated with social insects in general and ants in particular. The combination of linkage mapping, cytological analysis, and genome sequencing contributed significantly to the advance of honey bee and Nasonia genetics/genomics (Beye et al. 1994; Gadau et al. 1999; Rütten et al. 2004; The Honeybee Genome Sequencing Consortium 2006; Werren et al. 2010; Desjardins et al. 2013).