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Vol. 63, 2024
(update: 2024.7.23)
Hole Size Matters: An Indirect Method for Measuring Gall Wasp Community Emergence?
Ricardo Clark-Tapia1, Victor Aguirre-Hidalgo1, Juli Pujade-Villar2, Cecilia Alfonso-Corrado1, and Felipe Tafoya1,*
doi:-
1Instituto
de Estudios Ambientales, Universidad de la Sierra Juárez, Avenida
Universidad S/N, Ixtlán de Juárez, Oaxaca 68725, México. E-mail:
rclark@unsij.edu.mx (Clark-Tapia ), victor@unsij.edu.mx
(Aguirre-Hidalgo), liana@unsij.edu.mx (Alfonso-Corrado)
2Universitat
de Barcelona. Departament de Biologia Animal Avda. Diagonal, 645. 08026
Barcelona, Spain. E-mail: jpujade@ub.edu (Pujade-Villar )
3Tecnológico
Nacional de México, Instituto Tecnológico El Llano Aguascalientes, Km.
18 Carretera Aguascalientes -S.L.P., El Llano Aguascalientes, México.
C.P. 20330. *Correspondence: E-mail: ftafoya@yahoo.com (Tafoya)
(Received 21 November 2023 / Accepted 26 June 2024 / Published -- 2024)
Communicated by Y. Miles Zhang
Quantifying
the abundance and diversity of small insects, especially those with
specific environmental associations or hidden habitats, can be
challenging using direct methods. Galls are specialized microhabitats
that host a wide range of interactions between species. However,
assessing their abundance and associated community diversity takes time
and effort. In this study, we propose an indirect approach using the
size of gall emergence holes to estimate the abundance of gall wasps
(Cynipini) and their associated wasp species. We examined eight
different types of gall structures collected in the temperate forest of
Mexico. We identified every gall-emerging individual, classifying them
as gall inducer, inquiline, or parasitoid. Kruskal-Wallis test,
correlation analysis and mixed linear model (LMM) were used to evaluate
differences between mesosoma size and gall’s hole size for each emerged
species in each gall type. Our results showed that mesosoma and hole
size significantly differed between Cynipini wasps and their associated
wasp species. LMM showed a significant relationship between the
mesosoma body and the size diameter of the emergence hole among the
analyzed wasp species. Upon validating the method, a low emergence rate
and low abundance of the studied Cynipini wasps were observed,
attributed to negative interactions and inadequate development of the
wasps. We emphasize the potential of gall emergence hole size as an
indicator of species abundance and emergence rates within Cynipini gall
complexes. Furthermore, strategies are discussed to improve their
effectiveness and reliability in future studies to increase our
understanding of the ecological dynamics and evolutionary processes of
gall-forming wasps.
Key words: Cynipini, Diameter, Mesosoma, Negative interactions, Wasp
Citation:
Clark-Tapia R, Aguirre-Hidalgo V, Pujade-Villar J, Alfonso-Corrado C,
Tafoya F. 2024. Hole size matters: An indirect method for measuring
gall wasp community emergence? Zool Stud 63:35.
Supplementary materials: Table
S1
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