Survey of the Aphids of Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Survey of the Aphids of Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Each species of aphid produces many different forms besides male, female, immature, and adult. Other forms, or morphs, include winged, wingless, egg-laying, and live-bearing. Because there is so much diversity even within each species, and because many forms are difficult or even impossible to identify, knowing the host plant on which aphid specimens were collected can be of great value. Colin will be spending two weeks in the park conducting a base-line survey of the aphids. He will collect the insects and the host plants they feed on. Back in the lab, technicians will mount aphids to microscope slides and plants to herbarium sheets, and database both insect and plant material. Colin, David and Loy will identify the material. Although this is primarily an exploratory project, with many aphid species being recorded from the park for the first time, new discoveries in aphid biology, including their different morphs and host plants, are sure to surface.
The principle product promised in the proposal is here delivered. The specimen data are available on the Internet. Specimen and host data are also here transmitted. Host data will be added to our Internet database at a later date when we have developed that feature (host data are part of the internal database but not yet available publicly). We have high quality photographs of 17 species which we will make available to DLIA. Most importantly, we have used this initial sampling as a means to identify future projects with the aphids of the park. We have already used DNA sequence data of park aphids in a forthcoming paper (Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. in press), and expect to use DNA data to discern certain species in the park. For example, we collected on red spruce what appears to be Cinaraengelmanniensis, a species never before found east of the Rocky Mountains . Our DNA studies, now underway, will hopefully tell us whether this odd find is indeed C. engelmanniensis or a new species. Also, now having spent time collecting aphids in the park, we are better prepared to continue our work by targeting certain plants known to host aphids (see 2004 DLIA proposal).
