Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson has characterised parasites as "predators that eat prey in units of less than one". Parasites include single-celled protozoans such as the agents of malaria, sleeping sickness, and amoebic dysentery; animals such as hookworms, lice, mosquitoes, and vampire bats; fungi such as honey fungus and the agents of ringworm; and plants such as mistletoe, dodder, and the broomrapes.
Galls or cecidia are a kind of swelling growth on the external tissues of plants, fungi, or animals. Plant galls are abnormal outgrowths of plant tissues, similar to benign tumors or warts in animals. They can be caused by various parasites, from viruses, fungi and bacteria, to other plants, insects and mites. Plant galls are often highly organized structures so that the cause of the gall can often be determined without the actual agent being identified. This applies particularly to some insect and mite plant galls. The study of plant galls is known as cecidology.
In evolutionary ecology, a parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its host at the host's expense, eventually resulting in the death of the host. Parasitoidism is one of six major evolutionary strategies within parasitism, distinguished by the fatal prognosis for the host, which makes the strategy close to predation.
Diplolepis is a genus of approximately fifty species in the gall wasp family Cynipidae. The larvae induce galls on wild roses (Rosa), and rarely on domestic roses.
Gall wasps, also incorrectly called gallflies, are hymenopterans of the family Cynipidae in the wasp superfamily Cynipoidea. Their common name comes from the galls they induce on plants for larval development. About 1,300 species of this generally very small creature (1–8 mm) are known worldwide, with about 360 species of 36 different genera in Europe and some 800 species in North America.
In zoology, an inquiline is an animal that lives commensally in the nest, burrow, or dwelling place of an animal of another species. For example, some organisms such as insects may live in the homes of gophers or the garages of humans and feed on debris, fungi, roots, etc. The most widely distributed types of inquiline are those found in association with the nests of social insects, especially ants and termites – a single colony may support dozens of different inquiline species. The distinctions between parasites, social parasites, and inquilines are subtle, and many species may fulfill the criteria for more than one of these, as inquilines do exhibit many of the same characteristics as parasites. However, parasites are specifically not inquilines, because by definition they have a deleterious effect on the host species, while inquilines have not been confirmed to do so.
Herbivores are dependent on plants for food, and have coevolved mechanisms to obtain this food despite the evolution of a diverse arsenal of plant defenses against herbivory. Herbivore adaptations to plant defense have been likened to "offensive traits" and consist of those traits that allow for increased feeding and use of a host. Plants, on the other hand, protect their resources for use in growth and reproduction, by limiting the ability of herbivores to eat them. Relationships between herbivores and their host plants often results in reciprocal evolutionary change. When a herbivore eats a plant it selects for plants that can mount a defensive response, whether the response is incorporated biochemically or physically, or induced as a counterattack. In cases where this relationship demonstrates "specificity", and "reciprocity", the species are thought to have coevolved. The escape and radiation mechanisms for coevolution, presents the idea that adaptations in herbivores and their host plants, has been the driving force behind speciation. The coevolution that occurs between plants and herbivores that ultimately results in the speciation of both can be further explained by the Red Queen hypothesis. This hypothesis states that competitive success and failure evolve back and forth through organizational learning. The act of an organism facing competition with another organism ultimately leads to an increase in the organism's performance due to selection. This increase in competitive success then forces the competing organism to increase its performance through selection as well, thus creating an "arms race" between the two species. Herbivores evolve due to plant defenses because plants must increase their competitive performance first due to herbivore competitive success.
Andricus quercuscalicis is a gall wasp species inducing knopper galls.
Insect ecology is the scientific study of how insects, individually or as a community, interact with the surrounding environment or ecosystem.
Andricus kollari, also known as the marble gall wasp, is a parthenogenetic species of wasp which causes the formation of marble galls on oak trees. Synonyms for the species include Cynips kollari, Andricus quercusgemmae, A. minor, A. indigenus and A. circulans.
Andricus foecundatrix is a parthenogenetic gall wasp which lays a single egg within a leaf bud, using its ovipositor, to produce a gall known as an oak artichoke gall, oak hop gall, larch-cone gall or hop strobile The gall develops as a chemically induced distortion of leaf axillary or terminal buds on pedunculate oak or sessile oak trees. The larva lives inside a smaller hard casing inside the artichoke and this is released in autumn. The asexual wasp emerges in spring and lays her eggs in the oak catkins. These develop into small oval galls which produce the sexual generation of wasps. A yew artichoke gall caused by the fly Taxomyia taxi also exists, but is unrelated to the oak-borne species. Previous names or synonyms for the species A. fecundator are A. fecundatrix, A. pilosus, A. foecundatrix, A. gemmarum, A. gemmae, A. gemmaequercus, A. gemmaecinaraeformis and A. quercusgemmae.
Diplolepis rosae is a gall wasp which causes a gall known as the rose bedeguar gall, Robin's pincushion, mossy rose gall, or simply moss gall. The gall develops as a chemically induced distortion of an unopened leaf axillary or terminal bud, mostly on field rose or dog rose shrubs. The female wasp lays up to 60 eggs within each leaf bud using her ovipositor. The grubs develop within the gall, and the wasps emerge in spring; the wasp is parthenogenetic with fewer than one percent being males.
Rabdophaga rosaria is a gall midge which forms Camellia galls or terminal rosette gall on willow species. It was first described by Hermann Loew in 1850.
Neuroterus numismalis is a gall wasp that forms chemically induced leaf galls on oak trees. It has both bisexual and agamic (parthenogenetic) generations and forms two distinct galls on oak leaves, the silk button gall and blister gall. The galls can be very numerous with more than a thousand per leaf.
Neuroterus anthracinus is a widely distributed gall wasp that forms chemically induced leaf galls on oak trees. N. anthracinus has both sexual and agamic generations and in consequence forms two distinct galls, the oyster gall and April-bud gall.
The Pineapple gall adelgid is a type of conifer-feeding insect that forms pineapple-shaped plant galls on its host species, commonly Norway and Sitka spruce. The adelgids are pear-shaped, soft-bodied green insects with long antennae, closely related to the aphid. Adelges lays up to one hundred eggs at a time, one on each needle. Adelges abietis is one of the most common species; synonyms are A. gallarum-abietis, Chermes abietis and Sacciphantes abietis.
Andricus quercuscalifornicus, or the California gall wasp, is a small wasp species that induces oak apple galls on white oaks, primarily the Valley Oak but also other species such as Quercus berberidifolia. The California gall wasp is considered an ecosystem engineer, capable of manipulating the growth of galls for their own development. It is found from Washington, Oregon, and California to northern regions of Mexico. Often multiple wasps in different life stages occupy the same gall. The induced galls help establish complex insect communities, promoting the diversification in niche differentiation. Furthermore, the adaptive value of these galls could be attributed their ecological benefits such as nutrition, provision of microenvironment, and enemy avoidance.
Andricus aries is a species of gall-forming wasps, in the genus Andricus. The species was named by the French entomologist Joseph-Étienne Giraud, in 1859. It is commonly found in eastern Europe and during the 21st century has spread to western Europe.
Andricus mukaigawae is a species of gall wasp native to southeastern Asia. It creates galls on the buds and leaves of oak trees. The galls are sometimes used by other gall wasps unable to create galls of their own, with both species sharing the gall.
Andricus dimorphus, also called the clustered midrib gall wasp, is a species of oak gall wasp in the family Cynipidae. Galls in which the larvae live and feed are formed in clusters along the midrib on the underside of oak leaves.
