Partitioning of herbivore hosts across time and food plants promotes diversification in the Megastigmus dorsalis oak gall parasitoid complex.

ABSTRACT: Communities of insect herbivores and their natural enemies are rich and ecologically crucial components of terrestrial biodiversity. Understanding the processes that promote their origin and maintenance is thus of considerable interest. One major proposed mechanism is ecological speciation through host-associated differentiation (HAD), the divergence of a polyphagous species first into ecological host races and eventually into more specialized daughter species. The rich chalcid parasitoid communities attacking cynipid oak gall wasp hosts are structured by multiple host traits, including food plant taxon, host gall phenology, and gall structure. Here, we ask whether the same traits structure genetic diversity within supposedly generalist parasitoid morphospecies. We use mitochondrial DNA se

SUBMITTER: Nicholls JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5773290 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature