Campus Units

Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology

Document Type

Article

Publication Version

Published Version

Publication Date

4-2008

Journal or Book Title

Biological Journal of the Linnean Society

Volume

93

Issue

4

First Page

779

Last Page

797

DOI

10.1111/j.1095-8312.2007.00943.x

Abstract

Diversification of phytophagous insects is often associated with changes in the use of host taxa and host parts. We focus on a group of newly discovered Neotropical tephritids in the genus Blepharoneura, and report the discovery of an extraordinary number of sympatric, morphologically cryptic species, all feeding as larvae on calyces of flowers of a single functionally dioecious and highly sexually dimorphic host species (Gurania spinulosa) in eastern Ecuador. Molecular analyses of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase-I gene from flies reared from flowers of G. spinulosa reveal six distinct haplotype groups that differ by 7.2-10.1% bp (uncorrected pairwise distances; N = 624 bp). Haplotype groups correspond to six distinct and well-supported clades. Members of five clades specialize on the calyces of flowers of a particular sex: three clades comprise male flower specialists; two clades comprise female flower specialists; the sixth clade comprises generalists reared from male and female flowers. The six clades occupy significantly different morphological spaces defined by wing pigmentation patterns; however, diagnostic morphological characters were not discovered. Behavioural observations suggest specific courtship behaviours may play a role in maintaining reproductive isolation among sympatric species.

Comments

This article is from Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 93 (2008): 779, doi: 10.1111/j.1095-8312.2007.00943.x.

Rights

Works produced by employees of the U.S. Government as part of their official duties are not copyrighted within the U.S. The content of this document is not copyrighted.

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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