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A test of trade-offs in dispersal and reproduction within and between a sister species pair of specialist insect herbivores

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Abstract

Understanding the drivers of trade-offs among traits is vital for comprehending the evolution and maintenance of trait variation. Theoretical frameworks propose that evolutionary mechanisms governing trade-offs frequently exhibit a scale-dependent nature. However, empirical tests of whether trade-offs exhibited across various biological scales (i.e. individuals, populations, species, genera, etc.) remains scarce. In this study, we explore trade-off between dispersal and reproductive effort among sympatric sister species of wasps in the genus Belonocnema (Hymenoptera: Cynipini: Cynipidae) that form galls on live oaks: B. fossoria, which specializes on Quercus geminata, and B. treatae, which specializes on Q. virginiana. Specifically, our results suggest that B. fossoria has evolved reduced flight capability and smaller wings, but a larger abdomen and greater total reproductive effort than B. treatae, which has larger wings and is a stronger flier, but has a smaller abdomen and reduced total reproductive effort. These traits and the relationships among them remain unchanged when B. fossoria and B. treatae are transplanted and reared onto the alternative host plant, suggesting that trait divergence is genetically based as opposed to being a plastic response to the different rearing environments. However, when looking within species, we found no evidence of intraspecific trade-offs between wing length and reproductive traits within either B. fossoria or B. treatae. Overall, our results indicate that observed trade-offs in life history traits between the two gall former species are likely a result of independent adaptations in response to different environments as opposed to the amplified expression of within species intrinsic tradeoffs.

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Data availability

Data and r code can be found here: https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.10620589.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Elaine Hu, Isaac Carroo and Hannah Towbin for assistance with sample collection and morphological measurements. Funding was provided to AMR by the Spurlino Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, to LZ by student research award from Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, Rosemary Grant Award from the Society for the Study of Evolution, and the Diana McSherry and Patrick Poe research award, to SPE from the Department of BioSciences at Rice University and to GRH from the Rice University Academy of Fellows.

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Author notes

  1. Amy M. Roush, and Linyi Zhang these authors contributed equally and serve as co-first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of BioSciences, Rice University, Houston, TX, 77005, USA

    Amy M. Roush, Linyi Zhang & Scott P. Egan

  2. Department of Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S1A4, Canada

    Linyi Zhang

  3. Department of Biological Sciences, George Washington University, Washington, DC, 20052, USA

    Linyi Zhang

  4. Department of Biological Sciences, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, 48202, USA

    Glen Ray Hood

  5. Department of Biology, Population and Conservation Biology Program, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX, 78666, USA

    James R. Ott

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  1. Amy M. Roush
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Contributions

LZ, SPE, GRH, and JRO conceived and designed the study. AMR collected the data, AMR and LZ analyzed the data. AMR and LZ wrote the manuscript with subsequent inputs from all authors.

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Correspondence to Linyi Zhang.

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Communicated by Kyle J Haynes.

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Roush, A.M., Zhang, L., Hood, G.R. et al. A test of trade-offs in dispersal and reproduction within and between a sister species pair of specialist insect herbivores. Oecologia 204, 529–542 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-024-05512-3

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