Hidden Neotropical Diversity: Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts

Condon, Marty; Scheffer, Sonja J.; Lewis, Martin W.; Swensen, Susan M.

doi:10.1126/science.1155832

Cited by 64 publications

(108 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…The observation that taxon range size explains a significant proportion of between taxon variance in diversity of gall-inducing midges accords well with previous studies showing that plant taxon range size is an important predictor of phytophagous insect diversity in the Palearctic [9,17] and Neotropics [11]. Plant taxa with larger ranges (and higher abundances within those ranges) come into contact with a greater diversity of other plant species and their insect fauna and thus may present larger colonization targets relative to plant taxa with smaller geographical extent [38].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Island phytophagy: explaining the remarkable diversity of plant-feeding insects

Joy

Crespi

2012

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Plant-feeding insects have undergone unparalleled diversification among different plant taxa, yet explanations for variation in their diversity lack a quantitative, predictive framework. Island biogeographic theory has been applied to spatially discrete habitats but not to habitats, such as host plants, separated by genetic distance. We show that relationships between the diversity of gall-inducing flies and their host plants meet several fundamental predictions from island biogeographic theory. First, plant-taxon genetic distinctiveness, an integrator for long-term evolutionary history of plant lineages, is a significant predictor of variance in the diversity of gall-inducing flies among host-plant taxa. Second, range size and structural complexity also explain significant proportions of the variance in diversity of gall-inducing flies among different host-plant taxa. Third, as with other island systems, plant-lineage age does not predict species diversity. Island biogeographic theory, applied to habitats defined by genetic distance, provides a novel, comprehensive framework for analysing and explaining the diversity of plant-feeding insects and other host-specific taxa.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Island phytophagy: explaining the remarkable diversity of plant-feeding insects

Joy

Crespi

2012

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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“…For example, Nyman et al [12] found that nearly half of recent speciation events in nematine sawflies do not involve niche shifts, undermining the common, ecologybased explanation of herbivorous insect diversification. Similarly, Condon et al [13] showed that Blepharoneura fruitflies, when sampled across South America, exhibit much higher diversity than would be expected from the sum of available niches (host plant diversity and plant parts), suggesting that non-ecological, geographical processes have contributed significantly to the evolution of their diversity. Therefore, allopatric, non-ecological modes of speciation, as found in Micropterigidae, is probably an important mechanism generating herbivorous insect diversity, but is commonly overlooked because the geographical scale at which it operates differs greatly depending on the dispersal ability of the insect.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Allopatric distribution and diversification without niche shift in a bryophyte-feeding basal moth lineage (Lepidoptera: Micropterigidae)

2011

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The Lepidoptera represent one of the most successful radiations of plant-feeding insects, which predominantly took place within angiosperms beginning in the Cretaceous period. Angiosperm colonization is thought to underlie the evolutionary success of the Lepidoptera because angiosperms provide an enormous range of niches for ecological speciation to take place. By contrast, the basal lepidopteran lineage, Micropterigidae, remained unassociated with angiosperms since Jurassic times but nevertheless achieved a modest diversity in the Japanese Archipelago. We explored the causes and processes of diversification of the Japanese micropterigid moths by performing molecular phylogenetic analysis and extensive ecological surveying. Phylogenetic analysis recovered a monophyletic group of approximately 25 East Asian endemic species that feed exclusively on the liverwort Conocephalum conicum, suggesting that niche shifts hardly played a role in their diversification. Consistent with the low flying ability of micropterigid moths, the distributions of the Conocephalum specialists are each localized and allopatric, indicating that speciation by geographical isolation has been the major process shaping the diversity of Japanese Micropterigidae. To our knowledge, this is the largest radiation of herbivorous insects that does not accompany any apparent niche differentiation. We suggest that the significance of non-ecological speciation during the diversification of the Lepidoptera is commonly underestimated.

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“…1), and often, additional morphological qualitative character states could be used to identify these species. Inasmuch as time and resources for alpha-taxonomy are limited, a DNA-barcoding first pass through an unknown or understudied taxa or geography will aid species discovery, subsequent identification of specimens, and strategies for subsequent alpha-taxonomy (16,17,19).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extreme diversity of tropical parasitoid wasps exposed by iterative integration of natural history, DNA barcoding, morphology, and collections

Smith

Rodriguez

Whitfield

et al. 2008

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

532

581

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We DNA barcoded 2,597 parasitoid wasps belonging to 6 microgastrine braconid genera reared from parapatric tropical dry forest, cloud forest, and rain forest in Area de Conservació n Guanacaste (ACG) in northwestern Costa Rica and combined these data with records of caterpillar hosts and morphological analyses. We asked whether barcoding and morphology discover the same provisional species and whether the biological entities revealed by our analysis are congruent with wasp host specificity. Morphological analysis revealed 171 provisional species, but barcoding exposed an additional 142 provisional species; 95% of the total is likely to be undescribed. These 313 provisional species are extraordinarily host specific; more than 90% attack only 1 or 2 species of caterpillars out of more than 3,500 species sampled. The most extreme case of overlooked diversity is the morphospecies Apanteles leucostigmus. This minute black wasp with a distinctive white wing stigma was thought to parasitize 32 species of ACG hesperiid caterpillars, but barcoding revealed 36 provisional species, each attacking one or a very few closely related species of caterpillars. When host records and/or within-ACG distributions suggested that DNA barcoding had missed a species-pair, or when provisional species were separated only by slight differences in their barcodes, we examined nuclear sequences to test hypotheses of presumptive species boundaries and to further probe host specificity. Our iterative process of combining morphological analysis, ecology, and DNA barcoding and reiteratively using specimens maintained in permanent collections has resulted in a much more fine-scaled understanding of parasitoid diversity and host specificity than any one of these elements could have produced on its own.Area de Conservació n Guanacaste ͉ Costa Rica ͉ caterpillar ͉ Braconidae ͉ host specificity

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Hidden Neotropical Diversity: Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts

Cited by 64 publications

References 26 publications

Island phytophagy: explaining the remarkable diversity of plant-feeding insects

Island phytophagy: explaining the remarkable diversity of plant-feeding insects

Allopatric distribution and diversification without niche shift in a bryophyte-feeding basal moth lineage (Lepidoptera: Micropterigidae)

Extreme diversity of tropical parasitoid wasps exposed by iterative integration of natural history, DNA barcoding, morphology, and collections

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