Specialization and morphological patters of flower-head feeding agromyzids / Padrões de especialização e diferenciação morfologica em agromizideos endofagos de capitulos de asteraceas

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2006

RESUMO

Feeding specialization and morphological variations of agromizid flies feeding inside asteracean flowerheads were analyzed in this thesis. All Asteraceae hostplants were sampled in cerrado remnants in the State of São Paulo. I recorded fifteen species from three genera, from which six are undescribed. For the first time, a species from Ophiomyia was recorded feeding flowerheads. I used the number of host-plants as surrogate for feeding specialization. I found that generalist species in the regional scale can be locally specialized on their hostplants. Moreover, host-plant presence at the local scale did not predict the occurrence of their endophagous agromyzids. To evaluate whether distinct methodologies for species separation are consistent, I examined the coincidence in the morphological similarity of 116 adult individuals. I also examined whether these distinct methods can discriminate those species with higher morphological similarity. The methodology based on measures of the external morphology was the most similar to the conventional classification system based on male genitalia morphology.

ASSUNTO(S)

cerrado cerrados agromyzidae compostas asteraceae

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