Oak gall wasps (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae, Cynipini) are characterized by possession of complex cyclically parthenogenetic life cycles and the ability to induce a wide diversity of highly complex species- and generation-specific galls on oaks and other Fagaceae. The galls support species-rich, closed communities of inquilines and parasitoids that have become a model system in community ecology. We...

A powerful approach to address the general factors contributing to ecological speciation is to compare distantly related taxa that inhabit the same selective environments. In this design, similarities among taxa can elucidate general mechanisms of the process whereas differences may uncover specific factors important to the process for individual taxa. Herein, we present evidence of parallel pa...

Ecological speciation occurs when reproductive isolation evolves as a consequence of divergent natural selection among environments. A direct prediction of this process is that ecologically divergent pairs of populations will exhibit greater reproductive isolation than ecologically similar pairs of populations. By comparing allopatric populations of the cynipid gall wasp Belonocnema treatae inf...

Paraulax Kieffer and Cecinothofagus Nieves-Aldrey & Liljeblad (Cynipidae: Paraulacini) were long supposed to be gall-makers on southern beeches ( Nothofagus , Nothofagaceae). Dissections of galls Blume, suggested that could instead either endoparasitoid or inquiline Aditrochus larva (Chalcidoidea). We sequenced the universal COI barcode Ultra-Conserved Elements (UCEs) from young larvae coll...

DNA extraction from minute hymenopterans and their larvae is difficult and challenging because of their small size indicating a low amount of starting material. Hence, 11 DNA extraction methods were compared to determine their efficacy in isolating DNA. Success of each method was scored on a 2% agarose gel after PCR of the cox 1 mitochondrial locus. A silica-membrane-based approach was the most...

Decades of experiments have demonstrated the ecological effect of competition, but experimental evidence for competitive effects on trait evolution is rare. I measured the evolution of six protozoan traits in response to competitors from the inquiline community of pitcher plants. Replicate populations of Colpoda, a ciliated protozoan, were allowed to evolve in response to intra- and interspecif...