Full text
| |
| Author(s): |
Larissa Galante Elias
Total Authors: 1
|
| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | Ribeirão Preto. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (PCARP/BC) |
| Defense date: | 2008-03-03 |
| Examining board members: |
Rodrigo Augusto Santinelo Pereira;
Finn Pierre Kjellberg;
Paulo Inácio de Knegt López de Prado
|
| Advisor: | Rodrigo Augusto Santinelo Pereira |
| Abstract | |
Interspecific ecological interactions which benefit all participants are known as mutualisms. However, the benefit exchange implies in costs for the involved species. This fact enables the appearance of species adopting opportunist strategies, known as parasites of mutualism. Plants belonging to the genus Ficus are suitable for studying these ecological interactions since they show a mutualistic interaction with pollinating wasps belonging to Agaonidae family and are exploited by non-pollinating wasps (parasites of the mutualism). The aim of this study was to elucidate the larval biology of non-pollinating fig wasps, genus Idarnes, belonging to flavicollis and carme species groups, associated with Ficus citrifolia at USP campus in Ribeirão Preto. We showed that species of flavicollis group are gallers, while species of carme group were not able to induce galls, probably being specific inquilines of the pollinating species. flavicollis wasps oviposit in syconia before receptivity and avoid retaliation by the plant, adopting a similar mechanism of oviposition to the one of the pollinators. carme wasps, on the other hand, deposit their eggs directly inside the embrionary sac of already galled flowers, where the pollinator larva is located. In disagreement with previous speculations, the results show that even in phylogenetically close species, such as flavicollis and carme species groups, there may be considerable variation in biology and resource exploitation strategies. (AU) | |