INVESTIGADORES
PARITSIS Juan
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Patterns in gall species diversity across altitudinal and precipitation gradients in northern Patagonia, Argentina: explanatory variables switch between alpha and beta diversity
Autor/es:
QUINTERO, C; PARITSIS, J; BARRIOS-GARCIA, MN; RODRIGUEZ-CABAL, MA; CORLEY, JC; AIZEN, MA
Reunión:
Congreso; ICE 2016 XXV International Congress of Entomology; 2016
Institución organizadora:
Entomological Society of America
Resumen:
Gall forming insects are a model guild to study geographic patterns of species distribution and their underlying mechanisms. Such mechanisms vary widely among ecosystems, but our knowledge of the gall communities associated to temperate forests of the southern hemisphere is almost nule.   Gall species richness and abundance associated to native woody species were surveyed across a west to east precipitation gradient (N = 32) and an elevation gradient spanning from 760 to 1,760 m.a.s.l. in three mountains (N=30) in northern Patagonia, Argentina. We found 53 species of gall inducers (morphospecies) on 25 host plant species (17 families), reveling that 50% of the native flora hosts between one and six gall morphs each. Across the W to E precipitation gradient and the elevation gradient, all biotic and abiotic variables explained ~60-70% of the variation observed in gall species richness (alpha diversity), but driven mostly by a positive effect of host-plant richness and soil nitrogen content. In contrast, changes in gall species composition (beta diversity) along the two environmental gradients showed a different pattern, with abiotic variables becoming more relevant explaining species turnover than host plant richness. Yet, geographic proximity not necessary drive similarities in gall species assemblages but rather clusters are mostly based in plant community changes across the two environmental gradients. Our results suggest that a combination of physical variables and plant traits explain the richness and distribution on gall forming insects, varying their relative importance as a function of the scale of analyses.