Background. Parasitic wasps in the family Braconidae are important regulators of

insect pests, particularly in forest and agroecosystems. Within Braconidae, wasps in the

tribe Euphorini (Euphorinae) attack economically damaging plant bugs (Miridae) that

are major pests of field and vegetable crops. However, the evolutionary relationships

of this tribe have been historically problematic. Most generic concepts have been

based on ambiguous morphological characters which often leads to misidentification,

complicating their use in biological control.

Methods. Using a combination of three genes (COI, 28S, and CAD) and 80 taxa

collected worldwide, we conducted Bayesian inference using MrBayes, and maximum

likelihood analyses using RAxML and IQ-Tree on individual gene trees as well as the

concatenated dataset.

Results. The monophyly of the tribe Euphorini and the two genera Peristenus and

Leiophron were confirmed using maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference. The subgeneric

classifications of Leiophron sensu lato were not supported, and the monotypic

genus Mama was also not supported.

Discussion. Euphoriella, Euphoriana, Euphorus, and Mama syn. n, have been synonymized

under Leiophron. Mama mariae syn. n was placed as a junior synonym of

Leiophron reclinator. The generic concepts of Peristenus and Leiophron were refined to

reflect the updated phylogeny. Further we discuss the need for revising Euphorini given

the number of undescribed species within the tribe.