Threatened insects are not so common and nearly none of them are parasitoids.
But some of the parasitoids species could probably also be considered as threatened because their high specialization to one or few hosts, their distribution (a lot of species of Braconidae are known only from few specimens or few places, even if this could be a bias of sampling) or their presence in threatened area (like rain forests).
Is this opportunity could help to their studies or the conservation of several areas/ecosystems? Did you have information, ideas, papers, example of such cases?
No information, not much idea, but if we protect the habitat to protect the host, we'll protect the parasitoid. Therefore, we have to work at 3 levels of protection, not only including a species in a list that nobody controls. Therefore, international teams need to work under cooperation and develop international projects to know what we have, in what situation they are, and how we should proceed to ensure their protection. The problem, as usually, funds, uncared administrations, uncared societies...
Dear Yves,
Unfortunately, many thousands (millions?) even much more arthropods have not been described thus it is not surprising that most of insects have not been protected. Practically, invertebrates are not sufficiently known.
Marta-Inés is right: we should protect the habitats and ecosystems and with them their living parts: all the living beings! Parasitoids are integral parts of the biosphere.
Thank you all for your answers. You are right, it is impossible to protect parasitoids without protecting the habitats or ecosystems!
But did you think that it could be possible that the inclusion of a "rare" species in IUCN redlist, like some parasitoids are (because known from only 1-3 specimens and in a shorter area/country), could help to enhance the research on this group? And then could help to improve the protection status of some area/habitats/ecosystems?
Of course, the "rarity" level of a species need to be clearly defined and not just related to a lack of sampling (which is mainly the case for most of parasitoids).
Sorry, it seems that my last answer has not benn properly uploaded!
I was saying "Especially, if the host is a pest or cause any other damage." I am going to attend an exciting session about Parasitoids in the European Congress of Entomology that is taking place in York (UK) Let see what experts argue...
Hi Marta-Inés,
How was the last ECE? Are there some infos related to my questions?
Best
Huge! There was a nice session focused on parasitoids. Abstracts will be publisehd in next Antenna, http://www.royensoc.co.uk/publications/Antenna.htm
Dear All,
The lectures in York may be interesting but cannot influence either the saving of parasitoids or their recognitions. Most of parasitods belong to the order Hymenoptera which are enormously difficult to identify. Unfortunately, majority of growers has no idea on natural enemies. Many of them use blindly pesticides.
- very interesting, Most of the parasitoids are belong to order Hymenoptera and some are very small in size. Most of the farmers has not take care of the parasitoids during use of insecticides. Several parasitoids which were found abundantly in the particular region during the survey before 10 years, now they are not availabe in these area. Thus there is need of conservation of these paraditoids