Ecological and Phylogenetic Relationships Shape the Peripheral Olfactory Systems of Highly Specialized Gall Midges (Cecidomiiydae).

ABSTRACT: Insects use sensitive olfactory systems to detect relevant host volatiles and avoid unsuitable hosts in a complex environmental odor landscape. Insects with short lifespans, such as gall midges (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae), are under strong selection pressure to detect and locate suitable hosts for their offspring in a short period of time. Ephemeral gall midges constitute excellent models for investigating the role of olfaction in host choice, host shift, and speciation. Midges mate near their site of emergence and females migrate in order to locate hosts for oviposition, thus females are expected to be more responsive to olfactory cues emitted by the host compared to males. In this study, we explored the correlation between host choice and the function of the peripheral olfactory system in 1

SUBMITTER: Molnar BP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5891623 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature