How to translate text using browser tools
1 November 2010 Molecular Divergence in Allopatric Ceratosolen (Agaonidae) Pollinators of Geographically Widespread Ficus (Moraceae) Species
Annika M. Moe, George D. Weiblen
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

Speciation in pollinating seed predators such as fig wasps (Hymenoptera: Agaonidae) is likely to have been influenced by a combination of ecological and geographical isolating mechanisms, but recent molecular analyses of fig wasps have focused on pollinator specialization as the main factor driving speciation. This study investigates the contribution of geographic modes of speciation such as dispersal, vicariance, and isolation by distance. We sampled haplotypes of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I from Ceratosolen pollinators of six geographically widespread Australasian fig (Moraceae: Ficus) species, including four species spanning Wallacea. Phylogenetic analysis investigated the extent of host conservatism and host switching accompanying divergence in Ceratosolen. Geographically widespread Ceratosolen showed deep intraspecific divergence exceeding or comparable to divergence between named sister species. Maximum parsimony and Bayesian analyses supported species monophyly in five of six cases, whereas results for a sixth species were equivocal. Bayesian divergence time estimation suggested dispersal across Wallacea during the Miocene epoch, after the collision of Australian and Asian continental plates. Cryptic species were evident in all six focal taxa. Because the deep mitochondrial divergence within these taxa is regionally distributed, allopatric divergence provides a simple explanation for the existence of these cryptic lineages pollinating widespread fig species. We found little evidence of divergence accompanied by host switching. The ancient origin of cryptic and geographically isolated species suggests that long-distance dispersal may be rare in Ceratosolen and that host associations are generally conserved during range expansion.

© 2010 Entomological Society of America
Annika M. Moe and George D. Weiblen "Molecular Divergence in Allopatric Ceratosolen (Agaonidae) Pollinators of Geographically Widespread Ficus (Moraceae) Species," Annals of the Entomological Society of America 103(6), 1025-1037, (1 November 2010). https://doi.org/10.1603/AN10083
Received: 20 May 2010; Accepted: 1 September 2010; Published: 1 November 2010
JOURNAL ARTICLE
13 PAGES

This article is only available to subscribers.
It is not available for individual sale.
+ SAVE TO MY LIBRARY

KEYWORDS
mitochondrial DNA
PHYLOGEOGRAPHY
Wallacea
RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS
Get copyright permission
Back to Top