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Life inside a gall: diversity, phenology and structure of Portuguese gall communities, their hosts, parasitoids and inquilines

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Abstract

Plant galls sustain diverse and complex communities of gallers, parasitoids and inquilines that provide exceptional systems to explore evolutionary, ecological and conservation questions. However, the structure and phenology of such communities are still largely unknown. In order to fill these gaps, we sampled plant galls along the Portuguese coast aiming to (1) characterize the diversity of gall-associated communities (plants, gallers, their parasitoids, and inquilines); (2) evaluate how richness and abundance of gallers are shaped by plant life-form; and (3) explore the phenology (i.e. emergence time) of the different guilds. For 1 year, we collected 31,737 galls from 33 plant species, revealing remarkably diverse communities centred on 49 gallers, 65 parasitoids and 88 inquiline species. The plant families with more galls were Fabaceae, Fagaceae and Cistaceae, while most gallers were Cynipidae and Cecidomyiidae. Regarding parasitoids, Torymidae and Eulophidae were the richest families, and most inquilines belonged to the families Cecidomyiidae, Thripidae, Aphidiidae and Psocoptera. Shrubs hosted a significantly greater abundance and richness of gallers. Overall community composition was highly variable in time, frequently with turnover rates greater than 50% between consecutive months. An asynchrony between life cycles of each guild could be explained by the sequential availability of resources for gallers and parasitoids and by the relaxed physiological constraints between galls and inquilines. This baseline information is vital for revealing a hidden component of biodiversity and shedding light on its community structure and resilience.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the commitment of many dedicated field personnel: P. Castro, S. Carvalho, L. Barrico, N. César de Sá, J. Cerca, J. Costa, A. Martins, D. Alves, E. Almeida and D. Barros-García; and the professional taxonomist consulted for arthropods identification, including N. Dorchin, L. Friedman, L. Crespo, J.L. Grosso-Silva, M. Alonso-Zarazaga, F. Di Giovanni, G. Broad, A. Polaszek, H. Vardal, A. Franquinho Aguiar, F. Chichorro, C. Prado e Castro, A. M. Ortega, A. R. Gonçalves, and the involved institutions such as Natural History Museum of London and National Research College of Veterinary and Agronomy of Portugal. RHH was funded by grant IF/00441/2013 of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). This research and FLN were supported by FCT and COMPETE/FEDER, through project “INVADER-B–INVAsive plant species management in Portugal: from early Detection to Remote sensing and Biocontrol of Acacia longifolia” (PTDC/AAGREC/4896/2014).

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  1. Centre for Functional Ecology, Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, Calçada Martim de Freitas, 3000-456, Coimbra, Portugal

    Francisco A. López-Núñez, Sérgio Ribeiro, Hélia Marchante, Ruben H. Heleno & Elizabete Marchante

  2. Escola Superior Agrária, Instituto Politécnico de Coimbra. Bencanta, 3045-601, Coimbra, Portugal

    Hélia Marchante

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  1. Francisco A. López-Núñez
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López-Núñez, F.A., Ribeiro, S., Marchante, H. et al. Life inside a gall: diversity, phenology and structure of Portuguese gall communities, their hosts, parasitoids and inquilines. Arthropod-Plant Interactions 13, 477–488 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11829-018-9655-4

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