Louis Nastasi has a deep love of wasps, and a particular fascination with Cynipid wasps, gall wasps that can specialize on just a few plants or even a single species. In this episode he tells us about their diversity and the tangled phylogenies he works on, and answers the question his paper poses; “Cryptic or underworked?” There’s so much we don’t know about gall wasps, and it has so many implications for conservation, agriculture, and more!

Louis Nastasi’s paper “Cryptic or underworked? Taxonomic revision of the Antistrophus rufus species complex (Cynipoidea, Aulacideini)” is in volume 97 of the Journal of Hymenoptera Research. 

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/jhr.97.121918

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Louis Nastasi - Transcript

New Species: Antistrophus laurenae

Episode image credit: Antoine Guiguet

Send Louis a Silphium plant gall! Email him at: LFN5093@psu.edu

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Music in this podcast is "No More (Instrumental)," by HaTom (https://fanlink.to/HaTom)

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