Pistacia palaestina (Anacardiaceae) is a common tree in the natural forest of Mt. Carmel, Israel, and the primary host of five common species of gall-forming aphids (Sternorrhyncha: Aphidoidea: Pemphigidae: Fordinae).
After a forest fire, resprouting P. palaestina trees, which are colonized by migrants from outside the burned area, become \"ecological islands\" for host-specific herbivores.
A portion of the Carmel National Park was destroyed by fire in September of 1989. The same winter, thirty-nine resprouting trees that formed green islands in the otherwise barren environment were identified and marked. Tree growth was extraordinarily Vigorous during the first year after the fire, but shoot elongation declined markedly in subsequent years. Recolonization of the 39 \"islands\" by the Fordinae was studied for six consecutive years. Although the life cycle of the aphids and the deciduous phenology of the tree dictate that the \"islands\" must be newly recolonized every year, the results of this study show that trees are persistently occupied once colonized. This is probably due to establishment of aphid colonies on the roots of secondary hosts near each tree following the first successful production of a gall.
Differences in colonization success of different species could be related to both the abundance of different aphid species in the unburned forest and the biological characteristics of each aphid species.
Geoica wertheimae induces spherical galls on its primary host, Pistacia palaestina (Anacardiaceae). We studied the temporal changes in gall size and aphid clone size, as well as gall distribution and abundance on marked trees during two consecutive years. The density of galls (per shoot and per leaf) was low during the study period, and gall distribution was clumped. Gall abundance varied greatly among trees, but gall abundance and tree budburst phenology were uncorrelated. Galls increased eight-fold in volume during the season, in parallel with the increase in aphid clone size, from one individual to several hundred aphids per gall. The trigger for the induction of the alate morph in the galls in late summer seems to be an abrupt change in aphid density within the galls, which occurs when aphid reproductive rate exceeds the rate of change in gall internal surface area.
Two species of Lepidopterous larvae were present in about one-third of the galls. They occasionally destroyed the aphid clone, but many aphids often remained alive. However, the volume of parasitized galls was significantly smaller than that of unparasitized galls, illustrating the dependence of gall size on aphid clone size.