Species diversity and richness of the superfamily Chalcidoidea associated with the asexual generations of the oak gallwasps species on Quercus infectoria Oliv. in West-Azarbaijan province

Oak gallwasps (Family: Cynipidae) are among the most important insects associated with oak trees. To identify the parasitoid communities of gall wasps on Quercus infectoria Oliv., galls were sampled in October 2018 due to the collection of asexual generations of oak gall wasps. Sampling was carried out at two altitudes (1300-1500 and 1500-1700 m) in the Pidaranan and Mirabad areas in 2018. Parasitoid species were identified, and their abundance, species diversity, and richness indices were calculated using Ecological Methodology ver. 3.0 software. The means of the treatments were compared between altitude slopes using an independent student t-test with SPSS ver. 21 software. Results showed that 20 species of gall wasps and 10 species of parasitoid wasps belonging to five families of the order Hymenoptera were collected and identified. Of the 20 species of oak galls, 15 had parasitoids. The two species Andricus coriarius Hartig and Andricus coriariformis Melika et al. had the highest number of parasitoid wasps. Among the parasitoid wasps, the most frequent species was Aulogymnus gallarum L., which was introduced as the main parasitoid in at least 10 gall wasp species with high population density. The mean values of parasitoid species diversity and evenness indices for gall wasp species on Q. infectoria in different regions and altitude slopes were not significantly different from each other.