The Iberian Peninsula holds one of the richest myrmecofauna Mediterranean basin, but some regions such as Portugal remain comparatively undersampled. Although new unrecorded species have been regularly found and published during last two decades, sum is still far from approaching more than 300 known to occur in Peninsula. In this context, arboreal ant Temnothorax convexus (Forel, 1894) reported...

Trace fossils of insect feeding have contributed substantially to our understanding of the evolution of insect-plant interactions. The most complex phenotypes of herbivory are galls, whose diagnostic morphologies often allow the identification of the gall inducer. Although fossil insect-induced galls over 300Myr old are known, most are two-dimensional impressions lacking adequate morphological ...

The majority of species in the mulberry family (Moraceae) are figs (Ficus), marked by a specialized inflorescence (syconium) and an obligate mutualism with pollinating fig wasps. Because of the unique morphology of the syconium, it has been difficult to investigate the evolutionary position of the fig. We sequenced the chloroplast gene ndhF to examine relationships in Moraceae and to elucidate ...

Galls are highly specialized plant tissues whose development is induced by another organism. The most complex and diverse galls are those induced on oak trees by gallwasps (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae: Cynipini), each species inducing a characteristic gall structure. Debate continues over the possible adaptive signi¢cance of gall structural traits; some protect the gall inducer from attack by natura...