Jim focuses on the systematics, evolutionary biology and ecology of parasitoid wasps. A major focus in the last few years has been on phylogenetic aspects of the evolution of interactions between parasitoid wasps and the symbiotic viruses they carry to suppress host immune systems. Taxonomically, he specializes on the family Braconidae. It is among the largest families of insects, including many species of economic importance as natural enemies of pest insects. He has focused his systematics research on the subfamilies Microgastrinae, Cardiochilinae, Rogadinae and related groups, emphasizing the taxa that parasitize lepidopteran larvae. This taxonomic work has also extended into collaborative studies on community ecology of parasitoids of caterpillars, and into producing user-friendly field guides to both the lepidopteran caterpillars and their braconid parasitoids.

An additional area of interest in his lab is the testing of various methods for analysis of morphological and molecular data for phylogeny estimation.

Representative and Recent Publications

Whitfield, J. B. 2002. Estimating the age of the polydnavirus/braconid wasp symbiosis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 99: 7508-7513.

Whitfield, J. B., P. Mardulyn, A. D. Austin and M. Dowton. 2002. Phylogenetic analysis of relationships among microgastrine braconid wasp genera based on data from the 16S, COI and 28S genes and morphology. Systematic Entomology 27: 337-359.

Whitfield, J. B. 2003. Phylogenetic insights into the evolution of parasitism in Hymenoptera. In The Evolution of Parasitism - A Phylogenetic Approach, (T. J. Littlewood, ed.) Advances in Parasitology 54: 69-100.

Whitfield, J. B. 2006. Revision of the nearctic species of the genus Pholetesor Mason (Hymenoptera: Braconidae). Zootaxa 1144: 1-94.

Huson, D. H., M. Steel and J. B. Whitfield. 2006. Reducing distortion in phylogenetic networks. Workshop on Algorithms in Bioinformatics 2006 (Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics 4175): 150-161.

Banks, J. C. and J. B. Whitfield. 2006. Dissecting the ancient rapid radiation of microgastrine wasp genera using additional nuclear genes. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 41: 690-703.

Whitfield, J. B. and P. J. Lockhart. 2007. Deciphering ancient rapid radiations. Trends in Ecology and Evolution (May issue).

Lapointe, R., K. Tanaka, W. Barney, J. Whitfield, J. Banks, C. Beliveau, D. Stoltz, B. Webb and M. Cusson. In press. Genomic and morphological features of a banchine polydnavirus: a comparison with bracoviruses and ichnoviruses. Journal of Virology.