Megan Lynch (she/her)Oct 23, 2023
@friesen5000 I meant, does the morphology of the gall differing from insect species to inspect species correlate to different needs each insect species has? Here we have the same plant species, even a very close location on the same leaf - different morphologies. I just wanted to know whether it's random - not selected against in evolution - or whether there's a function of the morphology for the insect.
Show threadChuckling DuckOct 23, 2023
@ml a great question but not one that's been addressed as far as I know. There's been some studies done linking some gall characteristics to parasitoid deterrence but presumably all gall inducers have that selection pressure so I'm not aware of studies linking specific gall characteristics to the specific needs of a given species.
Tagging @ymilesz in case I'm missing something
Show threadMegan Lynch (she/her)
@friesen5000 @ymilesz Thanks. It's something I've been considering this year (not having time to do the digging, but just musing on it) because of the variety of galls. Wondering the extent to which it relies on what the plant species/tissue itself has as potential and the extent to which it specifically caters to what the insect needs. And there's also the possibility of co-evolution in this respect.
Oct 23, 2023 at 3:24amWeb
Show threadMiles ZhangOct 23, 2023

@ml @friesen5000 Hi yes a few studies have started to look at gall traits and associated parasitoids/inquilines, I published this one in 2022: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/mec.16582 and we have another in preprint: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.07.556376v1.abstract

But otherwise I don't think it's been explored much in terms of plant tissue itself, at least not in cynipid galls.

Show threadMegan Lynch (she/her)Oct 23, 2023
@ymilesz @friesen5000 Thank you!