The Species Diversity of Oak Gall Wasps (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae) in Kermanshah Province

 The oak trees are considered the most important plant species in western forests of Iran and cynipid wasps create various galls on different parts of the oak trees. There are two oak species including Quercus brantii Lindl. and Q. infectoria Oliv. with different distribution in the forests of Kermanshah province. The present study aimed at investigating the biodiversity of oak gall wasps in different regions of Kermanshah. The oak galls were collected from six regions of Paveh, Javanrood, Gahvareh, Ghalajeh, Chalabeh, and Sarmil during 2011 and 2012 and the diversity indices were calculated based on the obtained data. In this study, a total of 30 different sexual and asexual galls were collected from catkin, buds, fruits, and leaves of Q. brantii (16 galls) and Q. infectoria (14 galls). Neuroterus lanuginosus Giraud, Dryocosmus israeli (Sternlicht), and N. saliens (Kollar) were recognized as the most abundant species and Andricus coriariformis (Melika), A. megalucidus (Melika), A. istvani Melika, Pseudoneuroterus macropterus (Hartig), and Synophrus olivieri (Kieffer) as rare species, respectively. Also, N. lanuginosus, N. saliens and Aphelonyx persica (Melika) were found from all regions and recognized as the dominant cynipid gall wasps species of the oak forests of Kermanshah. The calculated values for the Shannon-Wiener diversity index revealed that the diversity of cynipid wasps in Javanrood (1.878) and Gahvareh (1.870) was greater than Chalabeh (0.873), Paveh (0.681), and Ghalajeh (0.188). Also, the species diversity of gall wasps on Q. infectoria (1.573) was more than Q. brantii (0.574) based on the Shannon-Wiener Index. The greatest diversity of cynipid wasps was obtained at an altitude of 1500-1800 meters. Overall, 17 parasitoid wasp species (Chalcidoidea) were collected from 13 different galls on both oak species which were belonged to Torymidae, Eurytomidae, Ormyridae, Eupelmidae, Eulophidae, and Pteromalidae.