Insect responses to host plant provision beyond natural boundaries: latitudinal and altitudinal variation in a Chinese fig wasp community

Many plants are grown outside their natural ranges. Plantings adjacent to native ranges provide an opportunity to monitor community assembly among associated insects and their parasitoids in novel environments, to determine whether gradients in species richness emerge and to examine their consequenc...

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Autores principales: Wang, Rong, Compton, Stephen G, Quinnell, Rupert J, Peng, Yan-Qiong, Barwell, Louise, Chen, Yan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4567868/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26380693
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1622
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author Wang, Rong
Compton, Stephen G
Quinnell, Rupert J
Peng, Yan-Qiong
Barwell, Louise
Chen, Yan
author_facet Wang, Rong
Compton, Stephen G
Quinnell, Rupert J
Peng, Yan-Qiong
Barwell, Louise
Chen, Yan
author_sort Wang, Rong
collection PubMed
description Many plants are grown outside their natural ranges. Plantings adjacent to native ranges provide an opportunity to monitor community assembly among associated insects and their parasitoids in novel environments, to determine whether gradients in species richness emerge and to examine their consequences for host plant reproductive success. We recorded the fig wasps (Chalcidoidea) associated with a single plant resource (ovules of Ficus microcarpa) along a 1200 km transect in southwest China that extended for 1000 km beyond the tree's natural northern range margin. The fig wasps included the tree's agaonid pollinator and other species that feed on the ovules or are their parasitoids. Phytophagous fig wasps (12 species) were more numerous than parasitoids (nine species). The proportion of figs occupied by fig wasps declined with increasing latitude, as did the proportion of utilized ovules in occupied figs. Species richness, diversity, and abundance of fig wasps also significantly changed along both latitudinal and altitudinal gradients. Parasitoids declined more steeply with latitude than phytophages. Seed production declined beyond the natural northern range margin, and at high elevation, because pollinator fig wasps became rare or absent. This suggests that pollinator climatic tolerances helped limit the tree's natural distribution, although competition with another species may have excluded pollinators at the highest altitude site. Isolation by distance may prevent colonization of northern sites by some fig wasps and act in combination with direct and host-mediated climatic effects to generate gradients in community composition, with parasitoids inherently more sensitive because of declines in the abundance of potential hosts.
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spelling pubmed-45678682015-09-17 Insect responses to host plant provision beyond natural boundaries: latitudinal and altitudinal variation in a Chinese fig wasp community Wang, Rong Compton, Stephen G Quinnell, Rupert J Peng, Yan-Qiong Barwell, Louise Chen, Yan Ecol Evol Original Research Many plants are grown outside their natural ranges. Plantings adjacent to native ranges provide an opportunity to monitor community assembly among associated insects and their parasitoids in novel environments, to determine whether gradients in species richness emerge and to examine their consequences for host plant reproductive success. We recorded the fig wasps (Chalcidoidea) associated with a single plant resource (ovules of Ficus microcarpa) along a 1200 km transect in southwest China that extended for 1000 km beyond the tree's natural northern range margin. The fig wasps included the tree's agaonid pollinator and other species that feed on the ovules or are their parasitoids. Phytophagous fig wasps (12 species) were more numerous than parasitoids (nine species). The proportion of figs occupied by fig wasps declined with increasing latitude, as did the proportion of utilized ovules in occupied figs. Species richness, diversity, and abundance of fig wasps also significantly changed along both latitudinal and altitudinal gradients. Parasitoids declined more steeply with latitude than phytophages. Seed production declined beyond the natural northern range margin, and at high elevation, because pollinator fig wasps became rare or absent. This suggests that pollinator climatic tolerances helped limit the tree's natural distribution, although competition with another species may have excluded pollinators at the highest altitude site. Isolation by distance may prevent colonization of northern sites by some fig wasps and act in combination with direct and host-mediated climatic effects to generate gradients in community composition, with parasitoids inherently more sensitive because of declines in the abundance of potential hosts. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 2015-09 2015-08-13 /pmc/articles/PMC4567868/ /pubmed/26380693 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1622 Text en © 2015 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Research
Wang, Rong
Compton, Stephen G
Quinnell, Rupert J
Peng, Yan-Qiong
Barwell, Louise
Chen, Yan
Insect responses to host plant provision beyond natural boundaries: latitudinal and altitudinal variation in a Chinese fig wasp community
title Insect responses to host plant provision beyond natural boundaries: latitudinal and altitudinal variation in a Chinese fig wasp community
title_full Insect responses to host plant provision beyond natural boundaries: latitudinal and altitudinal variation in a Chinese fig wasp community
title_fullStr Insect responses to host plant provision beyond natural boundaries: latitudinal and altitudinal variation in a Chinese fig wasp community
title_full_unstemmed Insect responses to host plant provision beyond natural boundaries: latitudinal and altitudinal variation in a Chinese fig wasp community
title_short Insect responses to host plant provision beyond natural boundaries: latitudinal and altitudinal variation in a Chinese fig wasp community
title_sort insect responses to host plant provision beyond natural boundaries: latitudinal and altitudinal variation in a chinese fig wasp community
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4567868/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26380693
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1622
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