Species Richness of Galling Arthropods in Brisbane, Green Island, and Daintree National Park in Northeastern Australia

Abstract

Wesurveyed the species richness of galling arthropods in northeastern Australia in October 2002 and found 38 sorts of arthropod gall. The gall midge species richness on Eucalyptus spp. may support the microenvironment hypothesis in which the galling habit is considered to be adaptive to dry areas. In Green Island, the species richness of galling arthropods was very poor, since the island is too small and far out at sea. The galling species richness in Daintree National Park was apparently higher than the data recorded by Price et al. (1998) in the places locating on lower latitudes, but was lower than the previous data in Iguassu and Amazon,Brazil. The present data indicates that the species richness of galling arthropods is relatively high both under humid conditions and under high plant species richness in tropical rainforests.