Oak gall wasps (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae) species composition using diversity and similarity indexes across different locations of Oak forest, West-Azerbaijan, Iran

Abstract

Patterns of the distribution of species diversity are the result of ecological, physical and historical factors. Beta diversity is an important property of ecosystems because it provides information about the partitioning of habitats by species. The objectives of this study were to determine the level of oak gall wasps diversity present in five different locations and to study the similarity among these locations. The highest amount of Simpson (0.95) and Shannon (2.6) entropy index were recorded in Ghabre-hossein and Dare-ghabr. The Jaccard and Sorensen coefficients revealed extremely close results with multiple site similarity. The multiple-similarity measures indicated that similarity in gall composition and community between collecting sites was generally between 0.25 and 0.97. Our results suggest that more oak gall wasps species had an aggregated distribution, and gall wasps diversity shows a strong beta diversity component. Presence of the rare gall wasps species affected on multiple site similarity value. Difference in the local distribution of oak species, especially oak subspecies, and the climate of the locations shall be considered as one main factor in species diversity and the distribution of gall wasp species in different locations. Key words: Diversity, gall, wasps, similarity, community, distribution.