ORCID Profile
0000-0003-1505-1639
Current Organisation
South Australian Museum
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Publisher: Wiley
Date: 08-04-2019
DOI: 10.1002/EAP.1877
Abstract: Invertebrates are a major component of terrestrial ecosystems, however, estimating their bio ersity is challenging. We compiled an inventory of invertebrate bio ersity along an elevation gradient on the temperate forested island of Hauturu, New Zealand, by DNA barcoding of specimens obtained from leaf litter s les and pitfall traps. We compared the barcodes and bio ersity estimates from this data set with those from a parallel DNA metabarcoding analysis of soil from the same locations, and with pre-existing sequences in reference databases, before exploring the use of combined data sets as a basis for estimating total invertebrate bio ersity. We obtained 1,282 28S and 1,610 COI barcodes from a total of 1,947 invertebrate specimens, which were clustered into 247 (28S) and 366 (COI) OTUs, of which ≤ 10% were represented in GenBank. Coleoptera were most abundant (730 sequenced specimens), followed by Hymenoptera, Diptera, Lepidoptera, and Amphipoda. The most abundant OTU from both the 28S (153 sequences) and COI (140 sequences) data sets was an undescribed beetle from the family Salpingidae. Based on the occurrences of COI OTUs along the elevation gradient, we estimated there are ~1,000 arthropod species (excluding mites) on Hauturu, including 770 insects, of which 344 are beetles. A DNA metabarcoding analysis of soil DNA from the same sites resulted in the identification of similar numbers of OTUs in most invertebrate groups compared with the DNA barcoding, but less than 10% of the DNA barcoding COI OTUs were also detected by the metabarcoding analysis of soil DNA. A mark-recapture analysis based on the overlap between these data sets estimated the presence of approximately 6,800 arthropod species (excluding mites) on the island, including ~3,900 insects. Estimates of New Zealand-wide bio ersity for selected arthropod groups based on matching of the COI DNA barcodes with pre-existing reference sequences suggested over 13,200 insect species are present, including 4,000 Coleoptera, 2,200 Diptera, and 2,700 Hymenoptera species, and 1,000 arachnid species (excluding mites). These results confirm that metabarcoding analyses of soil DNA tends to recover different components of terrestrial invertebrate bio ersity compared to traditional invertebrate s ling, but the combined methods provide a novel basis for estimating invertebrate bio ersity.
Publisher: Magnolia Press
Date: 07-04-2021
DOI: 10.11646/ZOOTAXA.4951.3.9
Abstract: Abantiades penneshawensis Moore & Beaver sp. nov. and Abantiades rubrus Moore & Beaver sp. nov. are described as new. Both species are endemic to Kangaroo Island, and although both are related to species that occur on the Australian mainland and other islands, they are distinguished from those sister and phenotypically similar species by morphology and mtDNA (COI) barcodes. These two new species raise the number of Abantiades species on Kangaroo Island to six, three being endemic, and 45 species in the genus for the whole of Australia. There are now 13 species of Hepialidae (one undescribed) known from Kangaroo Island and we discuss the potential effects of recent catastrophic fire on some distributions.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 22-05-2019
DOI: 10.1111/AEN.12346
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 03-2023
Abstract: Split sex ratios provide broad insights into how reproductive strategies evolve, and historically have special relevance to the evolution of eusociality. Yet almost no attention has been directed to situations where split sex ratios may potentially decrease the payoffs for worker-like behaviour, increasing selective thresholds for eusociality. We examined sex ratios in a facultatively social colletid bee, Amphylaeus morosus . Sex ratios in this bee vary strongly with the presence of a nest guard and in a pattern that does not conform to assumptions of previous models in which split sex ratios facilitate altruism. While the production of daughters was constant across social and solitary nests, mothers produced more brood when a non-reproductive guard was present, but these extra brood were all male. This leads to split sex ratios, vicariously driven by guards that are unable to manipulate sex ratios in their favour. Importantly, if guarding becomes more common in a population this would lead to an excess of males and lower the genetic value of these extra males to guards, effectively putting a brake on selection for worker-like behaviour.
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 15-04-2020
Abstract: Island biogeography explores how bio ersity in island ecosystems arises and is maintained. The topographical complexity of islands can drive speciation by providing a ersity of niches that promote adaptive radiation and speciation. However, recent studies have argued that phylogenetic niche conservatism, combined with topographical complexity and climate change, could also promote speciation if populations are episodically fragmented into climate refugia that enable allopatric speciation. Adaptive radiation and phylogenetic niche conservatism therefore both predict that topographical complexity should encourage speciation, but they differ strongly in their inferred mechanisms. Using genetic (mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)) and morphological data, we show high species ersity (22 species) in an endemic clade of Fijian Homalictus bees, with most species restricted to highlands and frequently exhibiting narrow geographical ranges. Our results indicate that elevational niches have been conserved across most speciation events, contradicting expectations from an adaptive radiation model but concordant with phylogenetic niche conservatism. Climate cycles, topographical complexity, and niche conservatism could interact to shape island bio ersity. We argue that phylogenetic niche conservatism is an important driver of tropical island bee bio ersity but that this phylogenetic inertia also leads to major extinction risks for tropical ectotherms under future warming climates.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 30-05-2020
DOI: 10.1101/2020.05.27.116905
Abstract: As global bio ersity declines, there’s an increasing need to create an educated and engaged society. Having people from all ages participate in measuring bio ersity where they live helps to create awareness. Recently, the use of environmental DNA (eDNA) for bio ersity surveys has gained momentum. Here, we test whether s ling eDNA and metabarcoding can be used for rapid urban bio ersity surveys for educational purposes. We s led 2×1 L of water from each of 15 locations in the city of Trondheim, Norway, including a variety of freshwater, marine and brackish habitats. DNA was extracted, lified in triplicate for the COI gene and sequenced. The obtained data were analysed on the novel mBRAVE platform, an online open access software and computing resource. The water s les were collected in two days by two people and the lab analysis was completed in five days by one person. Overall, we detected the presence of 501 taxa identified as belonging to 435 species, representing 90 orders and 18 phyla. On average, only 5.4% of the taxa were shared among six replicates per site. Based on the observed ersity, three distinct clusters were detected and related to geographic distribution of sites. There were some taxa shared between the habitats, with a substantial presence of terrestrial biota. Our results match expected patterns of bio ersity in the landscape and show that with minimal s ling effort, hundreds of species can be detected. Thus, using eDNA analysis of water is promising for rapid bio ersity surveys, and it is likely that more detailed results could be obtained by optimising field and lab methods for particular groups of interest. We recommend that rapid eDNA surveys, with openly available services and softwares, can be used to raise awareness in the importance of bio ersity.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-04-2021
DOI: 10.1111/ZSC.12490
Abstract: The pan‐Antarctic distributions of several collembolan species have been supported by morphology for over 120 years. However, for most species where molecular data are available, these are now known to belong instead to several species, and most classified as short‐range endemics. One such species, Friesea grisea , had a pan‐Antarctic distribution that has been in question, but until recently, specimens of F. grisea from the type locality on South Georgia have not been included in any molecular appraisal. Here, we compare the molecular identity of specimens of F. grisea , from South Georgia, with other Antarctic and sub‐Antarctic species using the mitochondrial COI gene. A Bayesian phylogenetic analysis for 14 species of Friesea from southern regions, including F. grisea sensu stricto with species previously identified as ‘ F. grisea ’ ( F . antarctica , F. gretae and F. propria ) confirms the distinctness of the South Georgian specimens based on molecular data, and these results are confirmed morphologically. The genus Friesea is one of the most speciose genera of Collembola known in the Antarctic region, and we provide an annotated key (dichotomous and interactive versions) to all Friesea species in the sub‐Antarctic and Antarctica. We compare the biogeography of Friesea to other Collembola from the region to highlight our current understanding of species boundaries and island linkages.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 16-07-2021
DOI: 10.1111/MEC.16034
Abstract: There is substantial debate about the relative roles of climate change and human activities on bio ersity and species demographies over the Holocene. In some cases, these two factors can be resolved using fossil data, but for many taxa such data are not available. Inferring historical demographies of taxa has become common, but the methodologies are mostly recent and their shortcomings often unexplored. The bee genus Homalictus is developing into a tractable model system for understanding how native bee populations in tropical islands have responded to past climate change. We greatly expand on previous studies using sequences of the mitochondrial gene COI from 474 specimens and between 171 and 3928 autosomal (DArTSeq) single nucleotide polymorphism loci from 19 specimens of the native Fijian bee, Homalictus fijiensis, to explore its historical demography using coalescent and mismatch analyses. We ask whether past changes in demography were human- or climate-driven, while considering analytical assumptions. We show that inferred changes in population sizes are too recent to be explained by past climate change. Instead we find that a dramatic increase in population size for the main island of Viti Levu coincides with increasing occupation by humans and their modification of the environment. We found no corresponding change in bee population size for another major island, Kadavu, where human populations and agricultural activities have been historically very low. Our analyses indicate that molecular approaches can be used to disentangle the impacts of humans and climate change on a major tropical pollinator and that stringent analytical approaches are required for reliable interpretation of results.
Publisher: Magnolia Press
Date: 04-05-2022
DOI: 10.11646/ZOOTAXA.5133.2.3
Abstract: Two new species, Abantiades concordia sp. nov. and Abantiades malleus sp. nov., are described from Australia. Both species were collected in the Eastern Goldfields subregion of the Coolgardie bioregion in Western Australia. Abantiades concordia sp. nov. is shown to be closely related to A. paradoxa (Tindale, 1932) by sequence similarity of the mtDNA (COI) gene. The female of A. paradoxa is also described here for the first time. Abantiades paradoxa and the new species A. concordia sp. nov. are morphologically similar with respect to the structure of their genitalia, sternite VIII, wing patterning and their antennae with bi-forked rami. Abantiades malleus sp. nov. is quite distinct by sequence similarity of the mtDNA (COI) gene, but related in a clade with A. marcidus Tindale,1932, A. albofasciatus (Swinhoe, 1892), and A. furva (Tindale,1932), the latter species once placed in the synonymised Bordaia Tindale, 1932. Discussion of similar species once grouped under the genus Bordaia and under the genus Trictena Meyrick, 1890 (both junior synonyms of Abantiades Herrich-Schäffer, 1855) is also included.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 20-01-2021
Publisher: Magnolia Press
Date: 04-08-2020
DOI: 10.11646/ZOOTAXA.4822.1.3
Abstract: Abantiades cephalocorvus sp. nov. and Abantiades tembyi sp. nov. are described, along with the previously undescribed females of A. macropusinsulariae Simonsen, 2018 and A. pallida Simonsen, 2018. All of these species belong to a triforked Abantiades Herrich-Schäffer clade that is loosely centred around the Nullarbor and other arid regions of Australia. We explore DNA barcodes (mtDNA COI gene) from these and other Abantiades and discuss their significance for species recognition. The species distributions are entirely or largely allopatric and we discuss their origins from a widespread common ancestor that was likely distributed over inland and coastal regions in the mid- to late-Mesozoic before the onset of desertification. Notes on new distributional data for all of the known species in this clade are included.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 10-07-2023
DOI: 10.1111/ECOG.06568
Abstract: The majority of islands surrounding the Antarctic continent are poorly characterized in terms of microbial macroecology due to their remote locations, geographical isolation and access difficulties. The 2016/2017 Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition (ACE) provided unprecedented access to a number of these islands. In the present study we use metagenomic methods to investigate the microbial ecology of soil s les recovered from 11 circum‐Antarctic islands as part of ACE, and to investigate the functional potential of their soil microbial communities. Comparisons of the prokaryote and lower eukaryote phylogenetic compositions of the soil communities indicated that the various islands harbored spatially distinct microbiomes with limited overlap. In particular, we identified a high prevalence of lichen‐associated fungal taxa in the soils, suggesting that terrestrial lichens may be one of the key drivers of soil microbial ecology on these islands. Differential abundance and redundancy analyses suggested that these soil microbial communities are also strongly shaped by multiple abiotic factors, including soil pH and average annual temperatures. Most importantly, we demonstrate that the islands s led in this study can be clustered into three distinct large‐scale biogeographical regions in a conservation context, the sub‐, Maritime and Continental Antarctic, which are distinct in both environmental conditions and microbial ecology, but are consistent with the widely‐used regionalization applied to multicellular Antarctic terrestrial organisms. Functional profiling of the island soil metagenomes from these three broad biogeographical regions also suggested a degree of functional differentiation, reflecting their distinct microbial ecologies. Taken together, these results represent the most extensive characterization of the microbial ecology of Antarctic island soils to date.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 21-06-2023
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-01-2020
Publisher: Magnolia Press
Date: 17-06-2020
DOI: 10.11646/ZOOTAXA.4801.1.5
Abstract: A distinct group of Abantiades Herrich-Schäffer species is here confirmed as a valid clade that we refer to as the “dark obscura clade” supported by morphological and mtDNA evidence. The clade is the sister group of A. obscura Simonsen of north-western Australia and comprises four new species: Abantiades centralia sp. nov., A. kayi sp. nov., A. zonatriticum sp. nov., and A. hutchinsoni sp. nov. These species together with A. obscura, are reciprocally allopatric and have a combined distribution spanning much of the western half of Australia and this distribution is consistent with their each differentiating locally from a widespread ancestor. The four new species raise the ersity of Abantiades to 42 species. [Zoobank urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:C05458D1-0D34-4432-8EC4-D031ED6B7BEF]
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
Date: 2019
DOI: 10.1071/PC18037
Abstract: The success of invading plants in island ecosystems has often been inferred to result from ‘invader complexes’, where cointroduced plants and their specialist pollinators can reciprocally enhance each other’s spread. However, it has also been suggested that in islands with low pollinator ersity, those pollinators should evolve into super-generalists that may be able to pollinate a wide range of exotic plants, enabling the spread of exotic weeds. Fiji has a very depauperate endemic bee fauna and previous studies have suggested that its only lowland bee species, Homalictus fijiensis (Apoidea: Halictidae), has a very wide range of host plants. However, those studies only included a small number of endemic flowering plants. Our study expands observations of bee–flower interactions to explore host plant ranges of H. fijiensis and introduced bee species to include a wider variety of native and introduced plant species. We show that H. fijiensis does have a wider host range than introduced bees, including Apis mellifera (Apoidea: Apidae), and an ability to exploit extrafloral nectaries and poricidal anthers that are not utilised by the introduced bee species. Our results support the hypothesis that super-generalism can evolve in islands where pollinator ersity is low, and that this may make those islands susceptible to weed invasions.
Publisher: Magnolia Press
Date: 08-07-2020
DOI: 10.11646/ZOOTAXA.4809.3.2
Abstract: Four new Aenetus Herrich-Schäffer species are described from northern Australasia Aenetus simonseni sp. nov. from the top-end of the Northern Territory, Australia, A. maiasinus sp. nov. from the Kimberley region of Western Australia, A. trigonogrammus sp. nov. from south-eastern Queensland, Australia, and A. albadamanteum sp. nov. from eastern Papua New Guinea. Aenetus simonseni sp. nov. and A. maiasinus sp. nov. appear to belong to the tegulatus-group of species (sensu Grehan et al. 2018), A. trigonogrammus sp. nov. is part of the splendens-group of species (sensu Simonsen 2018), while A. albadamanteum sp. nov. shares morphological similarities with A. h soni (Joicey & Noakes, 1914), A. crameri Viette, 1956, and A. toxopeusi Viette, 1956, from New Guinea, and A. cohici Viette, 1961 from New Caledonia. The four new species are illustrated and compared with superficially similar species in morphology and, for two species, molecular (mtDNA COI gene) sequences.
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
Date: 2020
DOI: 10.1071/IS19060
Abstract: The Gasteruptiidae are an easily recognised family of wasps whose larvae are considered predator-inquilines in the nests of solitary bees and wasps. There has been minimal molecular research on the family and as a result little understanding of the evolutionary relationships within the group. We present the first molecular phylogeny focused on Gasteruptiidae, generated using three molecular fragments (mitochondrial C01 and nuclear markers EF1-α and 28s) and estimate the ergence times of Evanioidea based on three secondary calibration points. The analyses included 142 specimens of Gasteruptiidae and 5 outgroup taxa from Aulacidae and Evaniidae. The monophyly of the Gasteruptiidae and its subfamilies Gasteruptiinae (Gasteruption) and Hyptiogastrinae (Hyptiogaster and Pseudofoenus) are confirmed. Our results indicate that Evanioidea erged during the late Jurassic at 151.3 (171.99–136.15)Ma with Evaniidae during the early Cretaceous at 137.33 (140.86–133.67)Ma, and Gasteruptiidae during the Palaeocene at 60.23 (83.78–40.02)Ma. The crown age of Hyptiogastrinae was estimated to be during the mid-Eocene 40.72 (60.9–22.57)Ma and for Gasteruption during the early Eocene at 47.46 (64.7–31.75)Ma, which corresponded to their host ergence ages. We anticipate that more extensive taxon s ling combined with the use of phylogenomic data will help resolve low support within the Gasteruption clade.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 19-08-2021
DOI: 10.1101/2021.08.18.456862
Abstract: Antarctic conservation science is important to enhance Antarctic policy and to understand alterations of terrestrial Antarctic bio ersity. Antarctic conservation will have limited long term effect in the absence of large-scale bio ersity data, but if such data were available, it is likely to improve environmental protection regimes. To enable Antarctic bio ersity prediction across continental spatial scales through proxy variables, in the absence of baseline surveys, we link Antarctic substrate-derived environmental DNA (eDNA) sequence data from the remote Antarctic Prince Charles Mountains to a selected range of concomitantly collected measurements of substrate properties. We achieve this using a statistical method commonly used in machine learning. We find neutral substrate pH, low conductivity, and some substrate minerals to be important predictors of presence for basidiomycetes, chlorophytes, ciliophorans, nematodes, or tardigrades. Our bootstrapped regression reveals how variations of the identified substrate parameters influence probabilities of detecting eukaryote phyla across vast and remote areas of Antarctica. We believe that our work may improve future taxon distribution modelling and aid targeting logistically challenging bio ersity surveys.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 08-2019
DOI: 10.1111/AEN.12414
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 30-07-2022
DOI: 10.1101/2022.07.27.501487
Abstract: Temperature and water availability are independently hypothesised to be important abiotic drivers of the evolution of metabolic rates and gas exchange patterns, respectively. Specifically, the metabolic cold adaptation hypothesis (MCA) predicts that cold environments select for faster metabolic rates to counter the thermodynamics of biochemical reactions while the hygric hypothesis predicts that dry environments select for discontinuous gas exchange to reduce water loss. Although these two hypotheses consider different physiological traits and how they vary along different abiotic gradients, metabolic rate drives gas exchange patterns in insects meaning these two traits are inherently linked. Despite this link, the MCA and hygric hypotheses are rarely considered together and the extent to which metabolic rates and respiratory patterns vary and co-vary with temperature and aridity along climatic gradients remains unclear. We tested the MCA and hygric hypotheses within a species of endemic Fijian bee, Homalictus fijiensis , across an altitudinal gradient of 1100 m, and among four Fijian bee species, including H. fijiensis , that inhabit different altitudinal bands. In Fiji, environmental temperature is ~5°C lower in the central highlands than in the coastal lowlands with the highlands receiving ~100 mm of additional precipitation than the lowlands each month. We found an MCA-like pattern within H. fijiensis and among Fijian bee species, where metabolic rate decreased with increasing temperature, but precipitation also explained variation in metabolic rate. We also found support for the hygric hypothesis within H. fijiensis and across species. Lastly, we found that the relationship between metabolic rate and ventilation rate changed depending on precipitation of the driest month within H. fijiensis and among bee species. Bees that inhabited wet regions had low ventilation rates of greater volume but bees that inhabited drier locations had rapid ventilations of smaller volume potentially as a mechanism to exchange gas without desiccating. As the correlation between metabolic rate and ventilation rate changes across the precipitation gradient, it is possible that these two traits can evolve independently of each other in response to abiotic variables despite being positively correlated.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 14-10-2022
Abstract: The tube-web spider genus Ariadna Audouin, 1826 has been revised for South Australia and Victoria, revealing a remarkable ersity, particularly centred in the arid north of South Australia. We describe 23 species as new, ten of which are supported by molecular data, where these were available. We recognise two species groups for some of the species based on a combination of genitalic morphology, macrosetae patterns and somatic characters: the clavata species group, which includes Ariadna clavata Marsh, Baehr, Glatz & Framenau, 2018 and A. spinosa sp. nov. from South Australia, and A. otwayensis sp. nov. and A. sinuosa sp. nov. from Victoria, and the formosa species group, including A. formosa sp. nov. and A. umbra sp. nov. from South Australia, and A. tria sp. nov. from Victoria. Seventeen new species could not be placed into these two species groups: A. arenacea sp. nov., A. bellatula sp. nov., A. curvata sp. nov., A. deserta sp. nov., A. diucrura sp. nov., A. flavescens sp. nov., A. inflata sp. nov., A. insula sp. nov., A. pollex sp. nov., A. propria sp. nov., A. rutila sp. nov., Ariadna simplex sp. nov., A. subplana sp. nov., A. una sp. nov., A. ungua sp. nov., A. valida sp. nov. and A. woinarskii sp. nov. We provide updated diagnoses and distributional data for A. clavata and A. tangara Marsh, Baehr, Glatz & Framenau, 2018 however, the holotype of A. burchelli (Hogg, 1900) from Victoria could not be located for this project.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 24-10-2020
DOI: 10.1002/EDN3.152
Publisher: The Company of Biologists
Date: 2020
DOI: 10.1242/JEB.230326
Abstract: Anthropogenic climate change and invasive species are two of the greatest threats to bio ersity, affecting the survival, fitness and distribution of many species around the globe. Invasive species are often expected to have broad thermal tolerances, be highly plastic, or have high adaptive potential when faced with novel environments. Tropical island ectotherms are expected to be vulnerable to climate change as they often have narrow thermal tolerances and limited plasticity. In Fiji, only one species of endemic bee, Homalictus fijiensis, is commonly found in the lowland regions, but two invasive bee species, Braunsapis puangensis and Ceratina dentipes, have recently been introduced to Fiji. These introduced species pollinate invasive plants and might compete with H. fijiensis and other native pollinators for resources. To test whether certain performance traits promote invasiveness of some species, and to determine which species are the most vulnerable to climate change, we compared the thermal tolerance, desiccation resistance, metabolic rate, and seasonal performance adjustments of endemic and invasive bees in Fiji. The two invasive species tended to be more resistant to thermal and desiccation stress than H. fijiensis, while H. fijiensis had greater capacity to adjust their CTMAX with season, and H. fijiensis females tended to have higher metabolic rates, than B. puangensis females. These findings provide mixed support for current hypotheses for the functional basis of the success of invasive species, however, we expect the invasive bees in Fiji to be more resilient to climate change due to their increased thermal tolerance and desiccation resistance.
Publisher: Magnolia Press
Date: 03-03-2022
DOI: 10.11646/ZOOTAXA.5105.2.1
Abstract: The genus Ariadna Audouin, 1826 is revised for Tasmania to include 13 species, ten of which are described as new: Ariadna abbreviata sp. nov., A. alta sp. nov., A. amabilia sp. nov., A. crypticola sp. nov., A. ferrogrisea sp. nov., A. fragilis sp. nov., A. gonzo sp. nov., A. muscosa Hickman, 1929, A. segmentata Simon, 1893, A. subnubilum sp. nov., A. thylacinus sp. nov. and A. tigrina sp. nov.. The species described in this manuscript exhibit high levels of sympatry.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 04-04-2022
Abstract: The benefits of living in groups drive the evolution of sociality, and these benefits could vary across a life-cycle. However, there may be experimental problems in linking group size at one time in a life-cycle to benefits that only become apparent later on when group size has changed, leading to what we call “temporal dissonance”. In the only known social colletid bee, Amphylaeus morosus, parasite pressures arise at various times throughout the life-cycle from different parasitoid species. Amphylaeus morosus is impacted by eight different parasitoid species operating at different host-colony phenology phases, including five species of Gasteruption wasps, a bombyliid fly and two mutillid wasp species. We found that, as the reproductive season progressed, the number of host adults in a nest declined, often to zero, but the presence of even one adult host female during late brood-rearing stages appeared to offer substantial brood protection against mutillids. We propose that the apparent benefits of colony size at one point in time may not reflect the benefits that become apparent at a later point in the season, leading to a temporal dissonance between group size and its later fitness benefits. We also show that A. morosus is strongly protogynous, with variation in parasitoid pressure across the reproductive phenology distorting operational sex ratios away from initial investment ratios. Combined, our data suggest that seasonal variation in parasitoid pressure may have major consequences for understanding social evolution, but these kinds of consequences are largely unexplored in current studies of insect social evolution.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 03-04-2019
DOI: 10.1111/AEN.12395
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 24-07-2018
DOI: 10.1111/ICAD.12318
No related grants have been discovered for Mark Stevens.