Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T21:55:56.988Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Local and regional determinants of galling-insect richness in Neotropical savanna

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2014

Walter Santos de Araújo ,
Pablo Cuevas-Reyes  and
Frederico Augusto Guimarães Guilherme
Walter Santos de Araújo*
Affiliation:
Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Evolução, Departamento de Ecologia, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Goiás Campus II, Caixa Postal 131, 74001–970, Goiânia, GO, Brazil
Pablo Cuevas-Reyes
Affiliation:
Laboratorio de Ecología de Interacciones Bióticas, Facultad de Biología, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo. Ciudad Universitaria, 58060 Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico
Frederico Augusto Guimarães Guilherme
Affiliation:
Unidade Jatobá, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Parque Industrial, 75804–020, Jataí, GO, Brazil
*
1Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

In this study, we determined the effects of plant richness, total plant abundance and abundance of plants with high galling diversity (super-hosts) on the local and regional galling richness in 15 areas of Neotropical savanna in different parts of Brazil. We established in each area 10 plots of 10 × 10 m, where we sampled a total of 131 plant species and 112 galling insect species. We considered all areas at the regional level and plots within each area at the local level. We found that at the regional level a combination of plant richness and plant abundance is the best model to explain the gall-inducing richness. We also found that at the local scale the most important factors are plant abundance and super-host abundance, but the plant richness is irrelevant. These findings confirm recent results that plant richness is an important predictor of galling species richness at the regional level, whereas the vegetation composition and structure act at the local level. Furthermore, this study contributes to the knowledge of the ecology of galling by showing how local factors influence the richness of this insect guild.

Keywords

gallsplant richnessplant abundancesavannassuper-hosts
Type
Short Communication
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , May 2014 , pp. 269 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

LITERATURE CITED

ARAÚJO, W. S., SANTOS, B. B. & GOMES-KLEIN, V. L. 2012. Relationship between host plant diversity and gall-inducing insects richness in the Brazilian Cerrado. Neotropical Biology and Conservation 7:41–47.Google Scholar
ARAÚJO, W. S., SCARELI-SANTOS, C., GUILHERME, F. A. G. & CUEVAS-REYES, P. 2013. Comparing galling insect richness among Neotropical savannas: effects of plant richness, vegetation structure and super-host presence. Biodiversity and Conservation 22:1083–1094.Google Scholar
BAKKER, J. P., OLFF, H., WILLEMS, J. M. & ZOBEL, M. 1996. Why do we need permanent plots in the study of long-term vegetation dynamics? Journal of Vegetation Science 7:147–156.Google Scholar
CUEVAS-REYES, P., QUESADA, M., HANSON, P., DIRZO, R. & OYAMA, K. 2004. Diversity of gall-inducing insects in a Mexican tropical dry forest: the importance of plant species richness, life-forms, host plant age and plant density. Journal of Ecology 92:707–716.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
FELFILI, J. M., SILVA-JÚNIOR, M. C., SEVILHA, A. C., FAGG, C. W., WALTER, B. M. T., NOGUEIRA, P. E. & REZENDE, A. Z. 2004. Diversity, floristic and structural patterns of cerrado vegetation in Central Brazil. Plant Ecology 175:37–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
FERNANDES, G. W. & PRICE, P. W. 1988. Biogeographical gradients in galling species richness. Oecologia 76:161–167.Google Scholar
GONÇALVES-ALVIM, S. J. & FERNANDES, G. W. 2001. Biodiversity of galling insects: historical, community and habitat effects in four neotropical savannas. Biodiversity and Conservation 10:79–98.Google Scholar
GRAMLING, J. M. 2006. Understanding local and regional plant diversity: species pools, species saturation, and the multi-scalar effects of plant productivity. Ph.D. thesis, University of North Carolina, USA.Google Scholar
HYATT, L. A., ROSENBERG, M. S., HOWARD, T. G., BOLE, G., FANG, W., ANASTASIA, J., BROWN, K., GRELLA, R., HINMAN, K., KURDZIEL, J. P. & GUREVITCH, J. 2003. The distance dependence prediction of the Janzen–Connell hypothesis: a meta-analysis. Oikos 103:590–602.Google Scholar
LEWINSOHN, T. M. & ROSLIN, T. 2008. Four ways towards tropical herbivore megadiversity. Ecology Letters 11:398–416.Google Scholar
McGEOCH, M. A. & PRICE, P. W. 2005. Scale-dependent mechanisms in the population dynamics of an insect herbivore. Oecologia 144:278–288.Google Scholar
MENDONÇA, M. S. 2007. Plant diversity and galling arthropod diversity – searching for taxonomic patterns in an animal-plant interaction in the Neotropics. Boletin de la Sociedad Argentina de Botanica 42:347–357.Google Scholar
OYAMA, K., PÉREZ-PÉREZ, M. A., CUEVAS-REYES, P. & LUNA-REYES, R. 2003. Regional and local species richness of gall-inducing insects in two tropical rain forests in Mexico. Journal of Tropical Ecology 19:595–598.Google Scholar
RATTER, J. A., BRIDGEWATER, S. & RIBEIRO, J. F. 2003. Analysis of the floristic composition of the Brazilian Cerrado vegetation III: comparison of the woody vegetation of 376 areas. Edinburgh Journal of Botany 60:57–109.Google Scholar
VELDTMAN, R. & McGEOCH, M. A. 2003. Gall-forming insect species richness along a non-scleromorphic vegetation rainfall gradient in South Africa: the importance of plant community composition. Austral Ecology 28:11–13.Google Scholar