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Revista de Biología Tropical
On-line version ISSN 0034-7744Print version ISSN 0034-7744
Abstract
REZENDE, Uiara Costa; MOREIRA, Ana Silvia Franco Pinheiro; KUSTER, Vinícius Coelho and OLIVEIRA, Denis Coelho de. Structural, histochemical and photosynthetic profiles of galls induced by Eugeniamyia dispar (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) on the leaves of Eugenia uniflora (Myrtaceae). Rev. biol. trop [online]. 2018, vol.66, n.4, pp.1469-1480. ISSN 0034-7744. http://dx.doi.org/10.15517/rbt.v66i4.32531.
Gall-inducing insects manipulate the structural, histochemical and physiological profiles of host-plant tissues to develop galls. We evaluated galls induced by Eugeniamyia dispar on the leaves of Eugenia uniflora in an attempt to answer the following questions: (i) How does this gall-inducing insect change the structural and histochemical profiles of the host-plant organ? (ii) Despite structural changes, can gall tissues maintain photosynthetic activity? Starch, proteins, reducing sugars and reactive oxygen species were detected mainly in the nutritive tissue surrounding the larval chamber. Despite structural changes, the galls induced by E. dispar on E. uniflora retain chlorophyllous tissue, although its amount and photosynthetic activity are less than that of non-galled leaves. This reduced photosynthetic activity, in association with the presence of large intercellular spaces, could improve gas diffusion and, consequently, avoid hypoxia and hypercarbia in gall tissue.
Keywords : Chlorophyll a fluorescence; photosynthetic pigments; protein storage; reactive oxygen species; tissue gradients.