Bohayella rodrigodiazi sp. nov.: a new species from Ecuador with an updated key to the New World species of Bohayella Belokobylskij (Hymenoptera, Braconidae, Cardiochilinae)

The New World species of Bohayella Belokobylskij, 1987 are revised based on morphological data, and a new species of the genus from Ecuador is described: Bohayella rodrigodiazi Kang, sp. nov. This work includes an updated identification key to species of Bohayella in the New World along with images of diagnostic characters. The number of recorded Bohayella species in the New World is increased from two to three.


Introduction
Ecuador has 228 braconid species recorded (Yu et al. 2016), including two members of the subfamily Cardiochilinae Ashmead, 1900 recorded by Fischer (1958) as Cardiochiles aterrimus Fischer and C. purpureus Fischer. A small genus of cardiochilines, Bohayella Belokobylskij (Belokobylskij 1987) contains eleven species worldwide. Among these species, two recently described new species occur in lowland and cloud forests of Costa Rica, B. geraldinae Kang and B. hansoni Kang (Kang et al. 2020). Host records of two Old World species, B. adina (Wilkinson) and B. exiguura (Huddleston & Walker), were provided by Beeson and Chatterjee (1935), Huddleston and Walker (1988), and Dangerfield et al. (1999). Unfortunately, nothing is known about biology of New World members of the genus. The validity of the genus was corroborated by phylogenetic data in Dangerfield et al. (1999), based solely on morphological data, and again by Murphy et al. (2008) based on molecular data. These data indicate that Bohayella species form a monophyletic group. A new species of Ecuadorian Bohayella is described herein, the key to species in the New World is updated, and a distribution map for the new species is provided.

Specimens
Specimens for this project were borrowed from the Texas A&M University Insect Collection (TAMU; College Station, Texas, USA) and University of Wyoming Insect Museum (UWIM; Laramie, Wyoming, USA). Holotype and paratypes of the new species will be housed in TAMU.

Morphological analysis and morphometric characters
Morphological characters were examined using a Leica MZ75 stereomicroscope. Morphometric characters were measured using Adobe Photoshop CS 6 (Adobe Systems, Inc). Numbers in parentheses in a species description indicate 0.01 × the actual size of each body part. The unit of length used in the current work is mm.

Imaging and image processing
Images were initially captured using a Visionary Digital BK Plus imaging system (Dun, Inc.), equipped with a Canon EOS 5DS DSLR camera. Image stacking was performed using Zerene Stacker v.1.04 (Zerene Systems LLC.). Images were edited using Adobe Photoshop CS 6 or Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 (Adobe Systems, Inc), and image plates were generated using the same software.

Key to species of New World
Male. Unknown. Host. Unknown. Distribution. B. rodrigodiazi sp. nov. is known only from Sacha Lodge, Rio Napo, Sucumbíos, Ecuador at the elevations of 220m and 270m.
Etymology. This species is named in honor of Dr Rodrigo Diaz, Associate Professor of biological control in the Department of Entomology, Louisiana State University. He is the PhD advisor of the author of this paper (IK) and originally from Quito, Ecuador.

Discussion
Bohayella rodrigodiazi sp. nov. is the third species of Bohayella recorded from the New World. The three species of New World Bohayella have similar body coloration, but their dorsal metasomal colors are diagnostic and may be correlated to the altitudes of their habitats. Specimens of B. geraldinae collected at altitudes of ~100m possess the palest tergites among the three species. Specimens of B. rodrigodiazi sp. nov. collected at the altitudes of ~250m have darker tergites than the members of B. geraldinae and paler tergites than specimens of B. hansoni. Specimens of B. hansoni collected at the altitudes above 1,500m possess the darkest tergites of the three species. This corresponds with the observations by Kang et al. (2020) that melanism of New World Bohayella species is associated with elevation. This pattern has been noted in other wasps by de Souza et al. (2020), Fernandez-Triana et al. (2014), and Mora and Hanson (2019). Also, melanism correlated with altitudinal gradient has recently been reported in dung beetles by Stanbrook et al. (2021). It is probable that there are a number of undescribed species of Bohayella as yet undiscovered in the neotropics.