Plant geographic phenotypic variation drives diversification in its associated community of a phytophagous insect and its parasitoids.

ABSTRACT:

Background

While the communities constituted by phytophageous insects and their parasites may represent half of all terrestrial animal species, understanding their diversification remains a major challenge. A neglected idea is that geographic phenotypic variation in a host plant may lead to heterogeneous evolutionary responses of the different members of the associated communities. This could result in diversification on a host plant by ecological speciation in some species, leading to geographic variation in community composition. In this study we investigated geographic variation of inflorescence receptacle size in a plant, Ficus hirta, and how the hymenopteran community feeding in the inflorescences has responded. Our predictions were: 1) Inflorescence size variation affects was

SUBMITTER: Yu H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6123920 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature