Florida Amphibolips hosts
Amphibolips galls are typically visually apparent in both generations and relatively easy to rear especially in their sexual generation. Douglas Castillejos, an entomologist in Mexico, is sequencing wasp specimens from any Amphibolips species we can get him.
One mystery I'd like to solve is the host relationships of each putative species. This mystery is most severe in Florida, where several similar gall types are reported from many similar and often-confused host species. For this post I'm focusing on globular or spindle-shaped leaf and bud galls.
My hypothesis is simply that each host has a single species of gall wasp, which induces a spindle-shaped sexgen leaf/bud gall in the spring and a globular bud gall in the late summer-fall, persisting over the winter. This hypothesis is contradicted extensively by current literature and iNat observations, but I'm speculating that much of this is due to a combination of gall variability and mistaken host IDs.
I don't know if it's even worth listing specifically what we already do and don't think we know. At this point, I'd look for agamic galls on overwintered twigs from now into April (adults can likely be cut out already) and then collect sexgen galls on new growth in May. Priority here is to document the gall inside and out (at collection and then at emergence) and to document the host so its ID can be confirmed by experts.
I'm especially keen to get adults from galls on these hosts:
Quercus laurifolia
Quercus phellos
Quercus pumila
Quercus myrtifolia
Quercus inopina
Quercus hemisphaerica
Quercus incana
What would be ideal ultimately is to get an adult from any pair of these gall types on a single host: cinerea, spinosa, and murata (all apparently agamic, overwintering now). cinerea galls are round and smooth, dark green-purple with white spots, spinosa galls are green and pointed and have raised protrusions, and murata galls are pointed and smooth and tan.
@laurasea @ryancooke @knotwood @eickwort @noaboa @cocokitty
That said, any Amphibolips adults reared from any host would be valuable additions to our understanding and to Douglas' genetic phylogeny of the genus.
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We'd especially like to get specimens on the type host and near the type localities.
@laurasea @aperturesciencebydan @team_bingebirder in Jacksonville, those are Amphibolips spinosa on Q laurifolia, quercuscinerea on Q incana, femoratus on Q laurifolia. Those are our highest priority, but quercusracemaria on Q laurifolia and melanocera on Q nigra were also described from Jacksonville.
@knotwood in Naples that's A murata on Q myrtifolia.
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