"Parasitoid" Species and Assemblages: Convenient Definitions or Misleading Compromises?

In contrast to similar terms such as herbivore, predator or parasite, the term parasitoid is, a commonly defined, taxonomically restricted. Insects alone are typically regarded as parasitoids. Nonetheless, there are a great many other organisms with essentially functionally identical biologies. These include species of nematode, fungus, protist, bacteria and virus. Thus, inter-kingdom and inter-phyletic competition within the parasitoid guild may be important in generating some of the observed patterns in insect parasitoid assemblages