Lethal Interactions Between Parasites and Prey Increase Niche Diversity in a Tropical Community

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 343; no. 6176; pp. 1240 - 1244
• Main Authors: Condon, Marty A., Scheffer, Sonja J., Lewis, Matthew L., Wharton, Robert, Adams, Dean C., Forbes, Andrew A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Association for the Advancement of Science 14.03.2014; The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subjects: Adult animals; Adult insects; Animals; Base Sequence; Biodiversity; Cucurbitaceae - parasitology; Flowers; Flowers - parasitology; Food Chain; Herbivores; Herbivory; Host plants; Insect communities; Molecular Sequence Data; Parasite hosts; Parasites; Parasitism; Parasitoids; Peru; Plant ecology; Plants; Predation; Pupa - parasitology; Specialization; Sympatric species; Tephritidae - embryology; Tephritidae - parasitology; Wasps - physiology; Peru
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.1245007

Ecological specialization should minimize niche overlap, yet herbivorous neotropical flies (Blepharoneura) and their lethal parasitic wasps (parasitoids) exhibit both extreme specialization and apparent niche overlap in host plants. From just two plant species at one site in Peru, we collected 3636 flowers yielding 1478 fly pupae representing 14 Blepharoneura fly species, 18 parasitoid species (14 Bellopius species), and parasitoid-host associations, all discovered through analysis of molecular data. Multiple sympatric species specialize on the same sex flowers of the same fly host-plant species—which suggests extreme niche overlap; however, niche partitioning was exposed by interactions between wasps and flies. Most Bellopius species emerged as adults from only one fly species, yet evidence from pupae (preadult emergence samples) show that most Bellopius also attacked additional fly species but never emerged as adults from those flies.