Does Road Dust Affect Hylemya Oviposition in Scarlet Gilia (<i>Ipomopsis aggregata</i>)?

Abstract

A previous study conducted at RMBL has found that road dust affects wildflower pollination and reproduction, this study included Ipomopsis aggregata. In 19 of 20 independent tests wildflowers carried less pollen on their stigmas in dusty conditions, but their seed sets were not consistently affected. The study lists compensatory herbivory as a mechanism that could contribute to the inconsistent seed set, therefore for this study we will be looking at the pre-dispersal seed predator the Anthomyiid fly Hylemya spp. We studied whether road dust affects Hylemya oviposition. We found more Hylemya eggs in experimentally undusted than in dusted Ipomopsis aggregata plants, both on a per-flower and whole-plant basis. On average there were 4.3 eggs per undusted plant and 2.2 eggs per dusted plant. This study also compared the results of a similar 2016 study. In both years undusted plants had higher egg loads, but egg loads were overall higher in 2016. Overall, between both years, 11.43% of undusted elongated buds had an egg and 5.22% of dusted elongated buds had an egg with a significant difference.

Local Knowledge Graph (9 entities)

Related Works

Items connected by shared entities, co-authorship, citations, or semantic similarity.

References (10)

8 in Knowledge Hub, 2 external