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Neotropical Insect Galls focuses on one of the most sophisticated guild herbivorous insects, the gall inducing insects. They trespass the defensive lines of their host plants, engineer the host to provide their larvae with shelter against the external harsh environment and natural enemies and in addition provide better food to their larvae. Not surprisingly the gall is often regarded as an extended phenotype of the inducing insect. The reader will find in this book the most updated ecological and evolutionary information on the biogeography of galling insects in the New World Tropics. Topics range from the very first reactions of the host plant cells to the gall inducing larvae up to the natural enemies that control galling populations, including galling insect relationships with habitats that ultimately result in their spatial distribution and diversity.
Neotropical Insect Galls also addresses many important questions in galling studies, such as the role of superhosts, the host plant defenses to galling, and the importance of habitat harshness at the canopy of rain forests, among many other issues. Finally, Neotropical Insect Galls also describes the galling richness in many different Neotropical vegetation types. The reader will find that the information depicted helps to challenge former hypotheses on their geography and diversity, provides new syntheses and open new perspsectives for the study of this spectacular herbivore guild.
Introduction
1. Neotropical Insect galls: status of knowledge and perspectives; G. Wilson Fernandes et al.
2. Developmental Anatomy of Galls in the Neotropics: Arthropods Stimuli vs. Host Plant Constraints; Rosy Mary dos Santos Isaias et al.
3. Functional Gradients in Insect Gall Tissues: Studies on Neotropical Host Plants; Denis Coelho de Oliveira et al.
4. Gall Morphotypes in the Neotropics and the Need to Standardize Them; Rosy Mary dos Santos Isaias et al.
5. Population Ecology of Galling Arthropods in the Neotropics; Tiago Shizen Pacheco Toma, Milton de Souza Mendonca Jr.
6. Bottom-up Effects on Gall Distribution; Milton Barbosa, Geraldo Wilson Fernandes
7. Natural selection on a tropical system: gall-size distribution on Waltheria indica L. (Malvaceae); Jose M. A. Figueiredo et al.
8. Density of insect galls in the forest understorey and canopy: Neotropical, Gondwanan or global patterns?; Servio Pontes Ribeiro et al.
9. Galling insects as indicators of habitat quality; Tiago Shizen Pacheco Toma et al.
10. Host specificity of gall midges (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) on ten species of Inga (Fabaceae); Amandine Bourg, Paul Hanson
11. Galling insect community associated with Copaifera langsdorffii (Fabaceae): the role of inter- and intra-annual host plant phenology; Marcilio Fagundes
12. Galling insects on Caryocar brasiliense Camb. (Caryocaraceae); Germano Leao Demolin Leite
13. Baccharis: a Neotropical Model System to Study Insect Plant Interactions; G. Wilson Fernandes et al.
14. Galls and Galling Arthropods of southern Brazil; Milton de Souza Mendonca et al.
15. Galling insects in the Brazilian Cerrado: Ecological patterns and perspectives; Walter Santos de Araujo et al.
16. Galls in Brazilian mountains: new reports and perspectives; Marco Antonio A. Carneiro et al.
17. Galls in the Brazilian Coastal Vegetation; Valeria Cid Maia et al.
18. Galls from Brazilian Atlantic Forest: status of knowledge and perspectives; Jean Carlos Santos et al.
19. Galling Insects in the Pantanal Wetland and Amazonian Rainforest; Genimar Reboucas Juliao et al.
20. Galls from Brazilian Tropical Dry Forests: status of knowledge and perspectives; Marcel S. Coelho et al.
21. Galls of the temperate forest of southern South America: Argentina and Chile; Carolina Quintero et al.
22. Gall-Inducing Insects and Their Associated Parasitoid Assemblages in the Forests of Panama; Enrique Medianero et al.
23. Insect galls of Costa Rica and their parasitoids; Paul Hanson et al.
24. Mexican gall-inducing insects: importance of biotic and abiotic factors on species richness in tropical dry forest; Pablo Cuevas-Reyes et al.
"This book comprises 24 chapters that reveal an array of research on physiology, ecology, and diversity of neotropical galls. [...] For gall enthusiasts and researchers of plant-insect interactions, this book would be good addition to their library. The volume highlights interesting tropical research that may not be familiar to scientists from temperate parts of the world."
– John Tooker, The Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 90 (2), June, 2015
