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Type: Article
Published: 2014-12-22
Page range: 271–278
Abstract views: 26
PDF downloaded: 1

A new species of Dasineura Rondani (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) in flower galls of Camassia (Asparagaceae: Agavoideae) in the Pacific Northwest, USA

Systematic Entomology Laboratory, PSI, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, c/o Smithsonian Institution MRC-168, P.O. Box 37012, Washington, DC 20013-7012, USA.
Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Colorado State University 563-627 University Avenue, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1177, USA. Department of Biology, Willamette University, 900 State Street, Salem, OR 97301-3931, USA.
Department of Biology, Willamette University, 900 State Street, Salem, OR 97301-3931, USA.
Agavoideae Camassia Cecidomyiidae Dasineurini flower gall midges Lasiopteridi Nearctic

Abstract

A new species, Dasineura camassiae Gagné (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae), is described, illustrated and compared to some of its congeners from related hosts and western North America. The new species causes flower galls on Camassia (Agavoideae; Asparagaceae) in the Pacific Northwest. Its current known distribution is Oregon and Washington, USA. Larvae develop in spring in flowers of Camassia spp., causing the young ovaries to enlarge prematurely and eventually abort, without forming seeds or mature fruit. Full-grown larvae crawl out of the gall in rapid succession and drop to the soil where they pupate; they remain there until spring of the following year when the adults emerge and lay eggs. The galls they induce in camas lily buds represent the first known association of the cosmopolitan genus Dasineura with the group of plants that includes Agave and its relatives.