Phylogeny of six African Leptopilina species (Hymenoptera: Cynipoidea, Figitidae), parasitoids of Drosophila, with description of three new species

Species of the genus Leptopilina are larval parasitoids of Drosophilidae, mainly species of the genus Drosophila. We provide four lines of evidence (i.e. morphological descriptions, crossing experiments, ITS2 sequences and RFLP's) to show that at least six species of Leptopilina occur in Africa, of which three previously unidentified species are described here. The phylogenetic position of these three new African species (L. orientalis n. sp., L. freyae n. sp. and L. guineaensis n. sp.) is established in relation to the species already known (L. heterotoma Thomson, 1862, L. victoriae Nordlander, 1980 and L. boulardi Barbotin et al., 1979) from Africa. This relationship is based on a comparison of sequences of the ITS2 of the ribosomal DNA. The geographical distributions over the Afrotropical region of these Leptopilina species are illustrated.