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Galls from Brazilian Atlantic Forest: Status of Knowledge and Perspectives

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Book cover Neotropical Insect Galls

Abstract

The Atlantic Rain Forest is one of largest and most diversified forest on the planet, a hotspot of biodiversity with the occurrence of unique plant-animal interactions, especially insect herbivores. Galling insects are a highly specialized guild of herbivores that induce abnormal growth in tissues of their host plants, the galls. These provide better food for the galling larvae and protection against natural enemies. Despite the great biological importance of the Atlantic rain forests, there are few ecological studies on insects in this ecosystem. In this chapter, we review the literature and analyzed the inventories of nine studies on galling insect diversity in Atlantic rain forests and provide the most up to date knowledge of gall inducers diversity associated with host plant species. The number of galling morphotypes varied between 29 and 282 on 16–139 host plant species belonging to 12–40 plant families. When compared to the other different Brazilian ecosystems, the Atlantic rain forests showed one of the highest levels of gall richness. Given the extension of the Atlantic rain forests more studies on galling studies are needed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, Campus Umuarama, Bloco 2D, Rua Ceará s/n Umuarama, Caixa-Postal: 593, 38400-902, Uberlândia, MG, Brazil

    Jean Carlos Santos

  2. Ecologia Evolutiva & Biodiversidade/DBG, ICB/Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, 30161 970, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil

    Marcel S. Coelho & Geraldo Wilson Fernandes

  3. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biologia Vegetal, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil

    Danielle G. Souza

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  1. Jean Carlos Santos
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  2. Marcel S. Coelho
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  3. Danielle G. Souza
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  4. Geraldo Wilson Fernandes
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Correspondence to Jean Carlos Santos .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Ecologia Evolutiva & Biodiversidade/DBG, ICB/Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil

    Geraldo Wilson Fernandes

  2. Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, Uberlândia, Minas Gerais, Brazil

    Jean Carlos Santos

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Santos, J.C., Coelho, M.S., Souza, D.G., Fernandes, G.W. (2014). Galls from Brazilian Atlantic Forest: Status of Knowledge and Perspectives. In: Fernandes, G., Santos, J. (eds) Neotropical Insect Galls. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8783-3_18

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